Barbell Shrugged - Dr. Gabrielle Lyon: Why You Should Stop Paying Attention to Body Fat Percentage and Start Building Muscle - Barbell Shrugged #367

Episode Date: January 2, 2019

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon is a functional medicine physician specializing in Muscle-Centric Medicine. She leverages evidence-based medicine with emerging cutting-edge science to restore metabolism, balance hormones and optimize body composition.   Dr. Lyon attended the Arizona College of Osteopathic Medicine and is board-certified in Family Practice. She also completed her research fellowship in Nutritional Science and Geriatrics at Washington University in St. Louis. Prior to her foray into medicine, Dr. Lyon was a national semifinalist in Fitness America, a professional fitness model and nationally ranked figure competitor.   Dr. Lyon's ongoing work is focused on metabolism, muscle, and body composition optimization. As a nationally recognized authority, Dr. Lyon is a regular speaker, sought after expert and educator. Dr. Lyon sees patients in New York City.   In this episode of Barbell Shrugged Dr. Gabrielle Lyon discusses why  you should stop focusing on body fat percentage and start building muscle, muscle centric medicine, programming workouts and training plans, and how to increase testosterone, rebuild your metabolism, and balance your hormones.   Happy New Year, Anders and Doug ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Show notes at: http://www.shruggedcollective.com/bbs-lyon ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Please support our partners! @drivennutrition: https://drivennutrition.net/shrugged/ to save 20% @bioptimizers: www.BiOptimizers.com/shrugged  “shrugged” to save 37% @organifi - www.organifi.com/shrugged to save 20%   ► Subscribe to Barbell Shrugged's Channel Here ► Subscribe to Shrugged Collective's Channel Here http://bit.ly/BarbellShruggedSubscribe 📲 🎧 Listen to the audio version on the Apple Podcast App or Stitcher for Android Here- http://bit.ly/BarbellShruggedApple http://bit.ly/BarbellShruggedStitcher Shrugged Collective is a network of fitness, health and performance shows that help people achieve their physical and mental health goals.  Usually in the gym, but outside as well. In 2012 they posted their first Barbell Shrugged podcast and have been putting out weekly free videos and podcasts ever since. Along the way we've created successful online coaching programs including The Shrugged Strength Challenge, The Muscle Gain Challenge, FLIGHT, Barbell Shredded, and Barbell Bikini. We're also dedicated to helping affiliate gym owners grow their businesses and better serve their members by providing owners tools and resources like the Barbell Business Podcast. Find Shrugged Collective and their flagship show Barbell Shrugged here: SUBSCRIBE ON ITUNES ► http://bit.ly/ShruggedCollectiveiTunes WEBSITE ► https://www.ShruggedCollective.com INSTAGRAM ► https://instagram.com/shruggedcollective FACEBOOK ► https://facebook.com/barbellshruggedpodcast TWITTER ► http://twitter.com/barbellshrugged

Shrug family, going long today. Dr. Gabrielle Lyon is in the house. We were hanging out with her in New York City, Manhattan, at the Strong New York event, hosted by Kenny Santucci and Jen Widerstrom at Solace New York. Phenomenal event. We got to sit down with Dr. Gabrielle Lyon.

We're talking about testosterone. We're talking about body fat percentage. How about lean muscle mass percentage? Yeah, you've never even heard of that because it's probably way more important than actual body fat percentage in the actual conversation that people are having with their doctors. Incredibly enlightening conversation today. And Doug Larson in the middle of this conversation even says, that is the most profound thing I've ever heard on Barbell Shrugged. That's a pretty heavy statement.

If you are going to be in Miami for Wadapalooza, I actually just got word through Instagram yesterday that Ryan Fisher is also going to be at Wadapalooza with us. But we're going to be hanging out at the FitAid booth. We've got eight shows lined up. We're hanging out with the coolest kids in CrossFit. Miami is going to be warm, so if you're a part of a cold state, you should get to Miami and come hang out with us. FitAid's throwing the party all weekend. They're going to be slanging FitAid, FocusAid, PartyAid, Barbell Shrug Aid. We're going to be doing shows there all weekend, so make sure you come by.

Me, Doug Larson, Fish, Samantha's going to be hanging out. She's the one that does all of our social media. She's going to be coming and documenting the whole thing. So please get over and hang out with us. Take a selfie. We're going to put everyone on the Shrugged Instagram page, and we'll probably tag you because that's what cool people do these days. But make sure you get over to the FitAid booth.

We are hanging out with them all weekend and doing shows and we've got a stacked lineup. Make sure you get over to Doug Larson Fitness. He's got all things movement specific mobility. I am going to be at Anders Varner. Do me a favor. Like every single week. Take a screenshot of the show. Tag me at Anders Varner. Do me a favor. Like every single week. Take a screenshot of the show. Tag me at Anders Varner.

Hit me with a hashtag. Go long. Because that's what we're doing. Go long. Go to the end zone. We have a two-hour long show with Dr. Gabrielle Lyon. Let's get into it. Sleep.

What did you mean? I wish I ate more sleep for breakfast. More sleep. And I feel guilty about not coming to work out. Why did you only get two hours of sleep? Because I am a horrible sleeper. Do we look more fit today than you? I've got something to do with Gabaginus.

Oh, my God. Delta sleep peptide. Really? Yes. What do you mean? I need all of it. You're in. You're in.

Are you kidding? If I can get these guys to sleep, you're out. Absolutely. Absolutely. Like that. Oh, my God. Sorry. You guys are here. You ready kidding? If I can get these guys to sleep, you're out. Absolutely. Absolutely. Like that. Oh, sorry. You guys are here. You ready, Rock?

I'm ready. You ready, Rock? You ready, Rock? You ready, Rock? Ready. Welcome to Barbell Shrug. We are at Strong New York in Solace, New York. Kenny Santucci, Jen Widerstrom, they put this sweet event on.

We're hanging out. There you go. I waited. Doug Larson's fixing the microphone. There we go. Is there lipstick on this? We are hanging out. Yes, it is. Ashley Van Houten's in the house. Dr. Gabrielle Lyon. Doug Larson's fixing the microphone. We are hanging out. Ashley Van Houten's in the house. Dr. Gabrielle Lyon.

Hello. How's life? It's good. This is really cool. I'm glad you made it down. We don't get out to the East Coast much because we're trapped in 70 degree weather and the beach and it's four foot waves every day and we just don't ever make it. So happy. We got to hang out.

You are. It's true. I got off the plane, and I had sandals on. It was 14 degrees. But why? Because my other warmest pair of shoes were Nanos or Metcon, whatever. It's like instantly wet feet. If you had said heels, we would have been out. Yeah, that would have been too much.

That would have been a step too far. I don't know how to live out here. My winter coat is just like a windbreaker something like this, whatever that is. Wherever you are, I know where I go. Why are you wearing board shorts? It's 15 degrees outside. That's all I got. Listen, every winter I do kind of think, like, why did I ever leave a warm place?

I used to live in Bermuda. I'm like, why did I ever leave? However, growing up in a cold place, moving to a warm place, and then coming back to a cold place, I truly do think, first of all, it's nice to have seasons. And second of all, I do think that you build a toughness and a resiliency that people who live in warm places do not have. SoCal soft. Even immune-wise.

Exactly. Yeah, I agree. We're really soft in SoCal. As soon as it rains a little bit, like you go on little Instagram stories and we had like a lot. There was like an eight-minute torrential downpour in SoCal. As soon as it rains a little bit, you go on little Instagram stories and we had a lot. There was an eight-minute torrential downpour in SoCal. Everybody thought that they needed to

get on social media. It's fucking raining. I'm stuck in my car. What do I do? You walk. You go to the grocery store. You go. This skin we have, oddly enough, waterproof. Unbelievable. And you're from Chicago, so that's even colder. That's miserable. There's wind out there that just right through your body.

Whoever invented that did, really, that's a design flaw. How did you get out here? I did a fellowship at WashU, and I had a relationship that brought me here. Will you, before we get too far down because we could just start talking way too far, can you give us a little bit of a background of all the things in your life? In terms of what well hold on let's let's just start with uh when did you find weightlifting was that before after the you got on the doctor path oh that started at 17 beautiful let's hear about that i like so just five years

ago most yeah exactly right so i actually was living in ireland at the time you actually got me there was right on where i was like really Thank you. Great job. I used to live in Galway. Where were you? I was in Limerick. Oh, okay. Cool. And I started, I did a year abroad, and I was working at the National Coaching and Training Center there, where they trained their Olympic athletes, and they were just lifting.

And that was it for me. You like the accents there? Did you pick it up a little bit? Well, at first, I thought it was a different language. Yeah. I'm like, wait, you're taking me where yeah and it inspired me and to be frank i saw fitness america no no judgment i saw fitness america and i saw these obstacle courses so there was remember back back in the day they had those obstacle courses i love those things this was i

think the galaxy or all those things and then i said i could do that so between that and then being with these guys that were lifting, I was hooked. What was the lifting program at the time? They were doing Olympic lifts, heavy compound movements. They were boxers and rowers. Healthy stuff. When did it start to send you down the medical path or being a doctor, going to school, learning all the things?

My godmother is one of the OGs in functional medicine. For those of the people that don't know what functional medicine is, it's more that integrative approach, gut health, all that stuff. My jam. Yes. There you go. So I was exposed to that. I graduated high school early and moved in with her at 17, and that was it. Wow.

So you grew up in, like, that's kind of an outlier position where you're having a conversation that no one else is having at a very young age. Yeah. What is that conversation in your house like how did she find it so that now this starts kind of passing she's kind of an old school hippie you know they're always right yeah they don't work they don't shower they're just super chill part of the earth right and she's healthy she started getting people better yeah i just she was really an early adopter and ahead of her time and when I moved in with her Good to go. Oh we're back minor technical difficulty. I may have kicked the court. Sorry. Sorry fam We hope you don't know where we were cuz I just went blank on everybody. We hope everyone enjoyed the interview. Yeah

Yeah, you know and that's it. Hope you learned everything Secrets. Oh my goodness. Wait, so in your opinion Why do you think the whole functional medicine thing is taking off the way that it is right now? Because people are seeing the huge deficits in healthcare and we can no longer with the way things are just do band-aids. So if you have a high blood pressure, we give you this. If you have stomach issues, I'm going to give you a PPI proton pump inhibitor. It's not effective. It's not working. Yeah. And I think that we're becoming, we have more access to information than ever before. We have people that are not physicians or not health experts that are seeking knowledge and actually putting

it out there. And it's just raising awareness. People don't want to wait until they're sick anymore. They want to take care of themselves early and not get to that point. And I think that there's an exponential rise in awareness. Yeah. Yeah. It seems before, like if you get hurt or if you're below just normal, then you go see a doctor and they try to get you back to normal. That's kind of like how I think about doctors. And then if you want to go from kind of normal to as best you can be, then like you go to like the fitness world. You go to personal trainers and nutritionists and et cetera, et cetera. But if medically you want to optimize and you want to look at your blood work and you want to just be the healthiest person you can be, but you don't just want to lift weights. You want to look at these other medical numbers, we'll say.

Then that's kind of where functional medicine doctors come in, in my mind. Is that semi-accurate? It is. And I think that it is about optimization, and I also think it's about alleviating any physical suffering. So if individuals are sick, say they have digestive problems or they have hormonal imbalances, and you go to a traditional doctor, and some of them are fantastic, they give you that kind of upstream answer as opposed to getting to the underbelly.

And I think everyone should have an integrative physician in their corner. So if you have an endocrinologist or a gastroenterologist, all that's great. But you should have someone that is integrated. To kind of connect it, right? And it's not necessarily just about optimization. It's also about longevity. Right. Because you guys train hard. If you train hard and don't recover,

the trajectory of how that goes for you is pretty clear. Yeah, there's a lot of stress on your body. There seems to me as well to be much more of a root cause approach. As opposed to just managing symptoms, and you said earlier putting band-aids on problems rather than finding out what the real underlying conditions

or problems are and then attacking those. Absolutely. For example, if you're not sleeping, like someone who shall remain nameless. To my left. Ashley. Nameless. I'm tired. So you can fix that from that root cause. You don't just drug me to sleep.

You figure out why I can't sleep. Is sleep usually like the baseline that you kind of start with when you're working with people? I assume there's like a blood panel. But is sleep kind of like the baseline of let's get that in order and then we can start to build it out? Actually, everything is important. It depends on where an individual's deficit is the biggest. Gotcha. So if their diet is the biggest deficit,

then you start there. And also depends on the person's capacity. So if they're all in and they want to do everything and they have a high tolerance for stuff, it's everything, sleep, diet, nutrition, hormones, let's go. Was that a Charles Poliquin kind of algorithm where it was like, when you decide decide when you're working with a client You decide what you want to attack first whether it's sleep or food

You're looking at you just explained it But the two kind of elements are how bad is the situation versus what their capacity is to deal with it? So for example, if your sleep is garbage and your food is garbage, but he's like pointing to me But he but say someone got up and worked out this morning and someone did i don't think you need to be pointing fingers guys it's three hours early for you i walked really fast over here okay that's anyway um but so so he has both of those areas that are really problematic but for whatever reason he's like gung-ho and ready and able to fix his food the sleep thing not happening so even if the sleep may ultimately be a more important factor,

you're going to focus on the place where he has the capacity first, right? Like that's kind of how you. Absolutely. And I think Charles would probably have said, just do it. Do it all. There's no excuse. What's your problem? Yeah, that's true.

Were you really close with him? I was. How long did you work with him, train with him? All the lessons you've learned in your life from him? We were really good friends. We were in communication once a day, if not once every other day. Oh, nice. We talked a lot.

I would say about two years. Yeah. And we became really good friends. He mentored me. In fact, I was just talking to Ashley. It was the first female physician he ever endorsed. So badass. Look at you.

And he really believed in me before I would say anyone else, you know? That's awesome. And it's great. Very blessed. How long were you with him? Or just life? When did you start working with him? Two years ago.

Nice. But of course I had known about him. I don't really know what happened. Does anybody know what happened? Am I allowed to ask? I do know what happened. So I have a really good friend named Esther Blum. And she said, you really need to

talk charles are you kidding i would love to so he's probably not going to email you back he's really hard to get a hold of and you probably won't hear from him but i'm gonna make the introduction i said okay cool within five minutes i got an email say hey let's jump on the phone yeah and that was it the rest is history um what is like the your training look like and kind of if we were to break down all the pieces like you talked sleep nutrition how do you kind of start to implement this stuff into your not even start but how are you implementing it into your life and like what are the things you're thinking about when you're building your own life out and then I assume that carries into your your clients well for me the first thing is food yeah and um And macronutrients, right? Calories do matter.

There's this whole conversation about how calories don't matter. They do. Yeah. And protein is first. It's the most important macronutrient. If anyone that's ever listened to me, it's beat a dead horse. It is. It's essential for aging.

It's essential for repair. I take care of a lot of people that go overseas and have been in all these crazy places and we need that for repair so number one is i eat what's considered a high protein diet beautiful sure and what does that look like for like grams of protein per pound of body weight for you so i usually recommend if a person is 120 pounds that they eat 120 grams of protein right and you can go higher if they are calorie restricted me i me personally and i don't necessarily recommend this to other people, I am probably two pounds of animal-based protein a day. It's true.

Get it, girl. It's a lot. That's good. That's a lot. It's a lot. And I don't necessarily recommend that to other people. I'm doing it. Why do you do it but you don't recommend it?

Well, because, because, okay. So there's a difference between opinion and data. The data doesn't support that, those kinds of numbers, but I can tell you with my own physiology and how I feel best, it works for me. And I'm very on top of blood work and nutrients and I balance the things that I need to, I take in and take out and it, you know, I don't need carbohydrates. My body can make it right. So for every hundred grams of protein I'm eating, I'm getting 60 grams of carbohydrates. I don't have kidney issues. I can dispose of the nitrogen.

I'm good. Let's roll. What do you think about the two kind of biggest, I don't like the word, but fads right now, diet wise, which is carnivore, which kind of sounds like your breakfast or, you know. So for the, I think that the concept of a carnivore diet is, is great and it can work for people. And I think that the body was also designed to not do one thing. So there will be a week out of every couple of months where I am very low protein, almost

no protein, largely vegan. Okay. It feels good to me. Well, I mean, there's this, a lot of fasting mimicking diet. There's methionine restriction. We don't have to get into all that. No, we should. Yeah, I mean, there's a lot of fasting mimicking diet. There's methionine restriction. We don't have to get into all that. No, we should. Yeah, we can.

We definitely should. So there's this concept of methionine restriction. And so Prolon is this concept where I'm sure you've all heard. Walter Longo created this nutrition plan that has, you know, he's involved science and those kinds of things. And I think that there is something to be said for going through periods of time where you suppress these anabolic drivers in the body. So I do that. So I don't do high protein all the time, every day. But it's not pre-planned. It's like when you feel like it, like you might be kind of not traveling for a week in your home.

You're just sort of, it's intuitive. It is. Okay. What were the proposed benefits for that? So they believe that it increases stem cell and decreases inflammation, decreases inflammatory markers like CRP, which is an inflammatory marker, and it decreases body fat and decreases hemoglobin A1C, those kinds of things. I've actually attempted.

I've tried this fasting mimicking diet because being in this world, I hear a lot about fasting and I hear a lot about ketogenic diet and I hear all these things and I want to try it because I'm getting all this information. I'm like, oh, that sounds cool. And you look buff. And like, let me try it out. Is that the soup thing? Yeah. Is it good? Well, I didn't do the like prolon specifically. I did like a sort of like a ketogenic based version of it. So like the macro breakdown and how many calories, et cetera. And I did it for four days. And I know that's not a long time, whatever I was playing with it, but it was such a more positive experience for me than a true fasting. Cause again, I like to work out. I like to use my brain and sleep well. And when you don't eat for days

and days, some people, like you said, different things work for different people, but I do not have a lifestyle that supports not eating for many days, but the fasting mimicking, it lets you eat. It lets you have energy. But I was, I, and again, this is anecdotal, but I noticed I felt tighter. I felt better. I felt less inflamed. I would absolutely do it again. You just got off the carnivore thing too, right?

Yeah, I did that too. Well, cause again, like this is when you're, when you're talking about two pounds of animal protein a day, I'm like, again, speaking my language. Cause that's kind of where I normally, if I wasn't trying to follow something cool or like what smart people on Instagram were telling me, I eat a really high protein diet, a lot of like game meat, a lot of, you know, um, and that's kind of when I tried that, I was like, this is this weird, like carnivore fad diet. That's so crazy. And you see these big dudes on Instagram, like eating four pounds of steak. And I'm like, I just ate animal protein for four days and it was like nothing. It was just delicious and fine and satiating so much more. So actually, so that is one of the

reasons that I always have my patients. And first of all, when we think of high protein, we have been wrong about carbohydrates and fats. Yeah. The always. Yeah. So why would this be considered high protein? Yeah. Is it perhaps that we've been underdosed, period? I mean, the data is pretty clear that we need double the RDA just for baseline functioning for as we age, right? And that's supported by, there's a protege study if your listeners really want to nerd out. I mean, there's really good scientific evidence to suggest that the 0.8 grams per kilogram

is not nearly enough, right? Hold on a second. Can we back up? Why is that not enough? I literally, I mean, I just... You do not eat that. Right. Right. So with that, hold on a second. Can we back up? Why is that not enough? It was, I literally, I mean, I just,

you do not eat that. Are you eating that? No, that's like 60. I mean, if you're a kilo is very low. No, no,

no. But when you say that, like the research is coming back saying that that's not nearly enough. Absolutely. Me personally, like I, obviously, but when we go and hang out at watch Dr.

Ben house speaking, and that's like his baseline for things is 0.8 grams per gram or kilogram. Is that a baseline that we can start people that are maybe untrained and unhealthy? Or do we need to go right to one gram per pound, just right off the bat? I mean, you do the body does have enzymes and things that it has to upregulate. But 0.8 grams per kilogram is too low. So my patients, I mean, you do, the body does have enzymes and things that it has to upregulate, but 0.8 grams per kilogram is too low. So my patients, I can tell you clinically, I start them at 90 grams, no matter what. Okay. 30 grams, three times a day. The data doesn't necessarily support that it needs to be 30 grams, three times a day. It could be 50 and 50. Is this with women? This is with, I mean, that's low for men. Okay. But yeah, I was going to say,

for me, that would be like starving. So the question is, what is your goal? So if you're looking to max out a system of muscle protein synthesis, you want to have, you know, you're probably more in the 50-gram range. Yeah. Right? This is this whole metabolic machinery. We've talked and heard a lot about mTOR, which triggers muscle protein synthesis, right? Which is, everyone says, that's why animal protein causes cancer,

which there's never been a study. That's not true. Wait, why are they saying it then? Where does the claim come from? It's epidemiological data, which we know is not useful. And it kind of confuses, do we know if they smoke? Do they drink? Were they eating processed meats?

And it's kind of like how they just remember what they did, right? Yeah. So it's kind of like how they just remember what they did, right? Yeah. So it's really ineffective. Yeah. So I can tell you our concepts of what high protein is is probably incorrect. So if you look at history, history usually shows us where our mistakes are. We've been incorrect with carbohydrates. We've overshot that.

We've made everyone obese and diabetic, right? Way overshot that. Right? So we really screwed that up. And then we said that fat was really bad and we should go on a low fat diet. That also screwed everyone up. So now protein is this black sheep in the macronutrient family because it has a face. So it's very emotional for people, but actually we probably screwed that up too. In fact, we did screw that up. We are underdosed. And I was looking at the CDC data because people say

we eat too much protein. It's 15% of calories. That is not a lot. Yeah. And that is not too much. Yeah. So we live in the CrossFit world, and CrossFitters love to be on one end of the spectrum, and then they freak out, and then they go to the other side. And over the last, like, two years, especially with this, like, counting your macros thing that just seems to have just like exploded and every nutritionist on instagram is now like hammering the crossfit world with we need 400 grams of

carbohydrates you don't want that at all like you were saying we need to go back a little bit more to the paleo side of things and be more high protein well i mean it also depends on your activity level but i always start with protein yeah i. I mean, so when you're thinking about body composition, if you're over 40 grams of carbohydrates and you're not training at that moment, you're starting to store, you know, you're... It's like you've got to earn your carbs. Yeah. That's exactly what I say. Do you have abs yet?

Then don't. I mean, what's the problem? I don't anymore. It's terrible. If you don't have abs... Ashley brought hers today, by the way. If you don't have abs, then that means you have stuff that you can use on you already. Yeah.

And if you think about it, the body was designed to be hungry. We were hunters, right? Yeah. We were designed to go through periods of time of not eating. We were designed to have physiological stress. So this constant feeding of carbohydrates. And typically what I find is that people aren't working hard enough to earn it. Yeah.

I mean, you know. You've got to earn it. Yeah. Well, so given what you just said, how much do you play with types of fasting? I play with it all the time. Yeah. And I will tell you some of the results that I've seen.

So for operators, military operators, or those really trying to put on muscle, I have found that it definitely changes hormonal status. And this is not anything that I've read. This is just in my clinical practice. And it definitely decreases testosterone. And it, for whatever reason... Fasting decreases testosterone?

Over periods of time, yes. It decreases their thyroid and it decreases their testosterone. Not everybody, but I see hundreds of people and this is a trend that I see. It seems like the keto and fasting for these individuals, it's one of those things that like works well until it doesn't and they tend to take it a little too far because they get like the CrossFitters perhaps, they get like a little too into it. They're like, oh, keto feels great. So I'm going to be keto for nine months straight. And then they eventually start losing muscle mass. They start having hormonal issues.

So it's like, it's knowing how and when and for how long to use these tools. This is very funny. The very first time I think I had ever heard of this keto thing in the low testosterone was two nights ago. And they were saying that keto was causing people a lot of sexual dysfunction, basically, like can't get it up. And there's a bunch of dudes rolling around the gym that can. And you combine that with social media and people not wanting to leave their houses. And we're going to have a population problem on our hands i think we can handle that we're in new york it's there's a lot of people so regarding the specifics around that like you know some people they hear they hear fasting they're like oh i do a two-day fast once

a quarter and some people are like oh i fast till noon every day like there's many different ways you could go about doing this whole category of fasting like like what types actually lead to lower testosterone like if i do a two-day fast every six months, is that really going to be an issue? These are more chronic decisions. So we are the accumulative I don't know

effect of these daily decisions. So if individuals are doing it every day, I've found that it decreases hormones, testosterone. They end up not feeling well. They do really well for a month. And then after that, I see a lot of rebound weight gain. Well, chronic calorie restriction for these guys would need to be able to operate at a high level.

But like I get where they're coming from because they're like, I'm traveling and I'm busy and I don't want to be hangry and I don't have to worry. I don't want to have to worry about food. And so I get that that sort of mental switch. I don't have to think. I don't have to eat all day. But when you do that get that that sort of mental switch, I don't have to think, I don't have to eat all day. But when you do that over and over again and you're a big, high-performing human being, that's going to be a problem. Yeah.

Yeah. Especially in, like, really intense situations. Yes. So how do you? Usually, so in really intense situations, most people are really, for the individuals that I take care of, more of a one-to-one ratio of protein to carbohydrates. So if they are going on long events... Are you lowering the fat in people like that as well? So their calorie consumption is high.

So if their energy expenditure is really high, you are just trying to feed, right? Their cortisol is up. They're on high alert. You are really trying to feed them. They're basically in a workout all day long. Yeah. In some sense. I mean, even if it's periods of waiting, you're still not pushing the boundaries of hunger. You want them really locked in. If we were to back this down though, to just gen pop, there's 30 people in here doing burpees. They're on the ERG. They're doing their thing. Do they need to be eating the two, 300 grams of carbohydrates a day? Or should

that be one gram body weight? So I think that you start them at 90 max. I usually target carbohydrates pre and post workout. Sometimes I train them low, depending if the goal is body composition optimization. But again, it's what's really interesting is everybody's so individual. Yeah. And you have to really know what works for that person. But I will tell you, I've never had a patient gain more weight doing optimal protein intake and lower carbohydrates and modified fat. I've never had them gain weight. You mentioned recently on Instagram you were talking about injuries that you were overcoming. Did you eat differently when you were trying to heal from these really intense injuries?

What happened? Can we start at the beginning? I don't know what they are. This might be a story that you're going to i like stories yeah so when i was doing when i was in my postdoc so i did two residencies and then a fellowship at washu and i was doing a fellowship at washu in obesity medicine geriatrics and nutritional science and you're in the hospital you're it's really early morning sometimes 4 a.m because you have to do clinical research and biopsies and all stuff so i decided that would be a great time to start powerlifting. Beautiful. Of course. I'd like to deadlift 500 and not sleep. Right. But I came from a fitness figure background. There was a period of time

where I was very externally focused. That does not set you up for good movement patterns. It doesn't mean that you know what you're doing. I mean, I'm sure there's a bunch of people that do. I had no idea. I just really like discipline. like disciplining my mind i like executing yeah yeah i didn't know what the what i was doing so i decided i would go for something hard started doing that started lifting heavy started having small injuries then i decided that you know mark devine that runs his core camp so i decided that it was started to do power lifting you know heavy lifting startedine runs this Kokora camp. So I decided that I started to do powerlifting, you know, heavy lifting. Started to hurt myself.

Then I'm going to transition to a 50-hour event. Okay. That was probably not my brightest idea. We always like to climb the ladder instead of going back down to the basics. I need more. You don't know what Kokora is. It's basically like simulated hell week Navy SEAL boot camp type thing.

So it's 50 hours of working out three days for the full 50 hours, no sleep, et cetera. Right. And I was thinking, that sounds fun. I got that. No problem. So I started training for that. Right. So I started training for that.

And things started hurting more. And instead of, in my mind, when things hurt more, that's a good thing. Yeah. You know, okay, it's pain. I got it. That means push harder. Long story short, two and a half years ago, I was doing sprint intervals, and my programming was totally off.

I had gotten a ton of advice to not scale back my training. I was rucking five hours on the weekend, you know, one day with a really heavy load, all these things because I thought that was fun. How are you doing this with school and residency and all that? Well, I had finished. So I was training during my fellowship. And then when I had finished fellowship, then I was just training. And it was great.

So it took about eight, ten months training. And I was doing a sprint interval for whatever reason. I don't know. Oh, you know Kara Killian? Kara Lazowskis in Andy Galpin's lab? Oh, yeah. Okay. Oh, Killer K. Yeah. She's radical. Love that girl. She's, in Andy Galpin's lab. Oh, yeah. Okay. Oh, Killer K.

Yeah. She's radical. Love that girl. She's family to me. That's awesome. She's super cool. She's amazing. She'd been in my face saying, don't do this.

Why are you doing this? You're overtraining. We've been training together for years. Yeah. So I popped my right hamstring off the bone. 80% of all sit. But when I went to go get imaged i had torn both labrums and then i went for regenerative treatment and i started going i started training again too soon so i tore both

my i tore my piriformis my left piriformis and my operator and then i was doing 100 pull-ups a day every day 10 sets of 10 warrior Tore my right shoulder up. And so, yeah, I was just crazy. Yeah. So it's been two and a half years of rehab. And then back to our question. Yeah, so were you eating differently? Oh, right, that question.

I backed you down, sorry. I needed to know the story. Not so much. I mean, there were periods of time where I would eat more carbohydrates. I mean, you definitely go through a period where you're depressed. You've been training your whole life no matter how you're doing it. Yeah. Yeah, I got a little puffy.

Were you in the fitness competitor world? I was. What goes on in there? Is that still around? Is that, like, still a category? Yeah. I don't hang out with them. I did fitness and figure.

Okay, I did figure, too. So, of course, we have more to talk about. Wait, you did the figure, too? Oh, yeah. Oh, I got some pictures. I did fitness and figure. Okay. I did figure too. So, of course, we have more to talk about. Wait, you did the figure too? Oh, yeah. Oh, I got some pictures. I'll show you later. It's intense. But, yeah, the whole – I understand the sort of training for aesthetics and how many – like people will do like one competition and then be like, you know, I'm a nutrition pro now.

Yeah. Like DM me for weight loss plans. Macros. Just because, you know, you know how to starve yourself for three months. But I personally actually don't have like a super negative experience with it. I don't either. Yeah, I don't either. I didn't like try to take it to like a professional level. I did it more for like similar to this crazy experience that you just talked about where it's like I want to learn what my body's capable of. I want to see it in a way that I've never seen it before. I want to see if I can be that disciplined.

But that's all that to say the world is a very kind of weird one. That culture can be kind of for a long time for all the strength sports, no matter which one it is. If you take it to the extreme, it's not very good for you. But if you just do it for fun, then they're all great. But there is an added layer with bodybuilding in that it is a aesthetic, physical judging. Well, I think for a long time we didn't if you wanted so like you get into this and you're like clearly i just want to look better so you learn how to lift weights and then it leads you down the rabbit hole of nutrition and sleep and you just keep diving and diving and all of a sudden you're like well i wonder if i can be good at this well there wasn't

before crossfit really like a performance way to go find out if you were good so you had to go get on stage which leads to a whole host of things um were there any like hormonal things that kind of came out of that or issues yeah of course can we talk about those the i love this stuff i would say the best practitioners and the best coaches are those that have been broken yeah and i went through a year that's why I'm so good. I am broken. Yeah. A year and a half of no menstruation. I, my inflammatory markers were up. My thyroid was down. I had really over-trained, had created a ton of stress. I was waking up in the middle of the night eating. Um, I couldn't regulate my cortisol. I couldn't regulate my heart rate. I'd wake up and I was, I was just cash. Yeah.

So for, it took me probably a good now i'm just at the other end of this right so it's been two and a half years i would say within the last year my body has regulated but the damage that i had done from being irresponsible with my training and just so hard-headed yeah really i mean i learned a lot What do you feel like you need to do at this point to get it all the way back to normal? So you asked me what I do in terms of nutrition. I have started incorporating a lot of collagen. Collagen's the best. You know, Shawn Lake, Bubz.

I use them because they're a high-based collagen. I think that's one of the – I was kind of leading there with your injuries. Yeah. I would imagine that kind of like really up-dosing the collagen would probably help with some of the i was kind of leading there with your with your injuries i would imagine that kind of like really up dosing the collagen would probably help with some of the tissue injuries i mean i think that you know i experienced i experimented with bpc 157 which is body protective compound which are these peptides i use a lot of my practice for me my injuries were so severe that i don't know how much that that helped yeah um but right now my diet is very, very high in protein. I am using collagen. I do have, you know, your omegas and those basic nutrient foundation, and it's very low in

carbohydrates. I am not trying to re-injure myself. I am trying to now be smart so that I can train for a lifetime. If you're taking collagen supplements, does that actually turn into collagen in your body? There is a study, you know, I think that that's, I can't say for sure, but I can tell you some of the data that I've read. And there's a study that came out recently that showed 15 grams of collagen combined with vitamin C actually helps collagen regeneration. What really is the big distinguishing factor that makes collagen unique compared to beef protein or whey protein or whatever it is?

So it has different amino acids. So it's actually low in brown chains. But it's high in... We had to pose. We're sorry. Proline, glycine, these other amino acids. And I actually don't think that we know exactly why. I would be foolish to tell you we know exactly why collagen works.

But we do know that collagen is a huge part of what makes up our skin and gut lining and bones and all of these things. And I will tell you, when I started using it very regularly, my nails grew like crazy. My skin was better. I noticed a significant difference, and that was the only supplement I added. I find that when people take collagen, they rave about it like you are. And then we talk to people, and they're like, well, it's not really like this one-to-one where you take it and now you're better. But people rave about how it's better for their joints. They're out of pain.

Something's happening in there where they feel significantly better. But it might not be. I just take this and all this collagen I just put in my mouth is now in my wrist and now my fascia is just amazing. I just feel awesome. That probably could be said for any supplement. Something's happening. Yeah. Right. There there's genetic variability there's dosing there's sourcing you know we don't necessarily know where the deficits are we don't have to know all the things just it might be good for you well you should probably do it in your case like if you're

eating more protein than most people are you already getting enough of those amino acids just by just pure volume or you don't need the supplements i am but i absolutely am what other supplements are you into or would you recommend for general health for people obviously good omega and i always use betaine typically people have really low stomach acid so 98 of all so i test stomach acid in my clinic okay 98 of people have low stomach acid from what only the ones that i've seen right so i don't know the rest of the population. But from what I have seen. I did when I got tested.

Is that dietary related? For whatever reason. Can we back this up? Stomach acid. Gotcha. For the digestion of proteins. Gotcha. Really?

I did not know that. And the absorption of even nutrients, right? So when people eat and feel really fatigued, typically they just are having low stomach acid, having challenges breaking things down. So what I have found, one of the things is I want people to feel better quickly. And for me personally, I have low stomach acid. I have tested, so I use the same.

I had not really, I'm not really like a big supplement person, but taking a bunch of digestive enzymes over the last month, that's one thing that really actually I have noticed a significant difference in just like feeling like I'm digesting food much better. There's like not that like kind of like bloated hanging out because I do a lot of the intermittent fasting thing. And then you eat a gigantic meal after you train and all of a sudden your body's like, I don't know if we're really going to be able to process this in the next half an hour. But getting some digestive enzymes in there and really helping with that piece of it seems to be very important. I definitely just learned something brand new, which is that if you feel sort of like tired and sluggish after a big meal,

a lot of that could be low stomach acid because you're just not digesting it. So it's sitting there. So that's kind of interesting because I remember I was talking to somebody recently and they said that one way to tell if you are carb intolerant more or less than the average is if you do have like a big meal with some carbs, even if they're healthy carbs, whatever. Some people, like when I have a big meal, I'm like, all right, I want to go for a walk now. And I'm like, go exercise and kind of walk it off. And then some people are like, all right, yeah, I'm dead. Like I'm going to sleep on the couch. So that's probably contributing to it. I find that people clinically get much

better. And I think that it's really important to have high dose vitamin D, even if we are in the sun, we're not really exposed to as much sunlight as we need to be and our vitamin D levels. So I like to keep it 60 to 80. That's kind of my range of where I like to see people. And typically if they're outside, they're around 40. So it's still low. So I recommend the vitamin D is fantastic. And really, I do a lot of testing on people. So I don't just say, here's a bunch of supplements. I'm very careful because it becomes overwhelming and why are you wasting your money? And we don't really know. So we kind of really go through, how are you feeling? What are your hormones showing? What do these markers look like? How often should people be getting a blood test it's when they start working with you and

you do like a baseline and then you're kind of trying some different things how often for like maintenance purposes should we be doing all that so for an athlete or an individual that is other than an athlete but a high performer maybe an operator or someone like that i will test them at baseline and then we will fix so we'll do an ion test or you know we look at a lot of inflammatory markers and then i will not retest those kinds of markers for a good six to eight months because i'll put them on the trajectory let them go check in with them to see how they're doing but i don't do an excessive amount of blood work because you have a sense after that first where you're at,

where you're at. But now if you're going on hormones within between four and eight weeks, I check right away. They're going on testosterone. If someone is going on testosterone, estrogen, which you, you're not on estrogen.

Um, no, I don't have any. So you see me work out this morning. You're a nice guy. You got a little bit. Yeah, maybe a tad. I'm sensitive.

I have a hint. So if you start them on that or thyroid, really, within four to six to eight weeks, I start testing them. But in terms of nutrient markers, you know, you get them going. Do you know if anyone right now is working on something that has more of like a continuous monitoring of all of your blood markers? Like if you get a blood panel done, it's like looking at your bank account one day. This is a snapshot. And then if you look at your bank account like every six months, like it doesn't really tell you what the hell is going on. Like someone has got to be coming out with something that can give you like on an app like a graph of your testosterone,

like a monthly rolling average, a daily rolling graph. A graph of your testosterone, like, a monthly rolling average, a daily rolling average. Doug needs a graph for everything. I actually want to start this company forever. But that's genius. It's not in the cards right now. I mean, so maybe someone would have an implantable device. Well, the continuous glucose monitors kind of,

some people are playing with that, plus the HRV piece. If you have that for, like, 50 things, and you could, like, compare them to each other and, like, automatically graph your ratios and whatnot, like, how valuable would that be that'd be amazing it would be it would also be crazy making it'd be what crazy crazy making oh it certainly could be this is what i was going to ask you like do you recommend or do you work with or do you have any of these apps that you think are good or are they all kind of potentially like they're gonna make people

obsessive compulsive you should stare at your phone more. Right? Exactly. So I don't use them. I do have people track what they're eating. Yeah. And people can track their blood work over a period of time. But there's not an app that I – I feel that people are actually on their phones too much. And I think that we're going to find that having all that electronic on your body is not ideal. You work with a lot of high operators. Can we just talk about a little bit of the stress profile

and how that influences a lot of how you're working with people and the decisions on nutrition, training, stuff like that? So it's really interesting. When someone is under a high stress condition, there are two types of people. Like A.J. Roberts had squatted 1,200 pounds one day in his life. Sorry, that's who we were yelling at. Go ahead. So there are two types of people. Those that experience stress and think it's amazing and love it.

Yeah. They're markers, those individuals. So you've got two guys standing ready to jump out of a plane. You have one guy who's scared shitless, like, holy shit, you know? Yeah. And his heart rate's up, his cortisol's up. He is just crazy, man. And then you have another guy, and he's like, oh, fuck.

But this is awesome. Fuck yeah. His heart rate is up, but his cortisol, he is not. The biochemical profile of those two individuals based on their internal experience from an external environment are different. How you feel about how you feel. That's right. Doug Larson, we've been rapping about this all weekend. I think it's incredibly empowering, though, when you feel about how you feel. That's right. Doug Larson, we've been rapping about this all weekend. I think it's incredibly empowering, though,

when you think about how much control your mind and how you see a situation can control how you react to it, how you perform, how you feel. I mean, that's an incredibly positive thing. Yes. I don't think you can control being nervous. If you're about to jump out of an airplane, you're just going to be nervous or not. It has nothing to do with how you can control being nervous. If you're about to jump out of an airplane, you're just going to be nervous or not. It has nothing to do

with how you feel about being nervous. That's right. You can control how you feel about how you feel, like Anderson said. That's a very powerful thing. I think that's where the mindset piece comes in. You can't control your thoughts or your feelings. It's kind of just a rise in consciousness, but you can control how you feel and behave based on the lower level feeling. When you're working with

the high operators, I would assume the majority of those people are like, oh, this is fucking scary. I'm ready. Let's go. 100%. They're totally cool with how they feel about that nervousness. So what you deal with them in terms of high stress situations is you do the best you can to make sure that they are well fed, balanced, right?

The one big thing that I see a lot is way too high of caffeine and stimulant consumption. Shit. I mean, 10 cups of coffee. So many Red Bulls. That's gross. We're all holding copies. Are you a Red Bull? No, but we just live in very similar lives.

I'm like a 40 of coffee. Like energy drinks? Red Bulls are my worst nightmare. Like I just smell. Oh, my God. So just going to rock star. They get sugar-free Red Bulls. I know.

But it's good for health. Anytime I see somebody drinking like a 24-ounce Monster with like green writing on the side and it looks like a bear clawed it. And I'm like, I just want to walk up and go. You smell the chemical? You're like, what even is this? Do you know what you're putting in your body? You pour it out and it's fluorescent.

And you think that shit's good for you. What is wrong with you? Well, I guess they think being awake is, you know, the most important thing by any means necessary. They need it at like 6 p.m. They play some more video games. Exactly. I think what is really important to identify is the amount of external stimulus you are putting in.

Right. So the guys in the high stress situations really need to be on and they love it. But if I can convince them to be on and then kind of come down, that actually allows their body to go into more of a recovery mode. Because isn't there also like you were just talking about obviously people's different reactions to stress and the person who embraces the fear and the people who don't. But there is still an element of these high performers, even if they love their job and they love their work, they are still experiencing stress. They do. And even if they don't see it that way. So it can be almost, I feel like harder to treat some of those people. Like I think about examples of people who are over-training and they're overworking, but they're like, but I'm not, I don't register it as stress because I love it. They also don't complain. They also don't

complain. There you go. So how do you deal with people who may internally be suffering, but they don't even know it? That's where blood work is so handy. Hey, I know you're not stressed, but your thyroid is one. You are a nightmare. Should be 3.5. Yeah. But I know you're not stressed, but your thyroid is one. You are a nightmare. It should be 3.5. Yeah. But I know you're not feeling stressed. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. You mentioned earlier testosterone.

Yeah. And I think that's a really interesting one. We've done a couple shows on testosterone, and I feel like it's one of these things I still am like, I don't understand it. Yes, you do. I mean, I understand it may be better than a lot of people, but especially when it comes to women and getting that into their training. And I think it's still just widely misunderstood of like. So women. So in my clinic, women's testosterone, I always measure it.

I measure it both in blood and in urine. Again, like Doug was saying, that there is variable. It's a snapshot in time. And women, almost all the women that I measure, their testosterone is low for whatever reason. And I think that has to do with stress and also not training. So we know that increasing muscle mass, increasing training can help boost testosterone. That being said, I have no problem supplementing testosterone for women. Sometimes I start with DHEA.

There's no guarantee. That's a precursor. No guarantee it goes to testosterone. But you should, if there is a problem, you should treat it. And it depends on the severity of the problem. If I have a woman coming in to me and say, wow, I've been feeling like shit for 10 years. No natural supplement is going to, that has been going on way too long. Yeah, you've hardwired that one. Right.

And so the treatment modality has to match the extent of the assault. Yeah. If, you know, Ashley came in and said, wow, I've not been feeling well for the last three months. I said, okay, girl, we got this. You know, we're going to get you sleeping. We're going to get you training really hard, recovering. Maybe a little DHEA. I'm going to measure you and see what happens.

Right? Right. Look at this. D-ball. Straight to it. Yeah. It's in the coffee already. Last thing I need. College and a D-ball. Here we go. That is it's in the coffee already. Last thing I need is my bridge.

College energy ball. Here we go. That is the last thing in my life. My patients think I give them water, but if you're my patient, don't drink what I give you. No wonder my results are so great. So that is where the difference between integrative and Western medicine. So I think that the challenge with integrative medicine is people like to be just natural i am not just natural i am 50 50 if i have a patient that is overweight

i will do anything to get that body fat off because i've talked about this before it's not about being over fat it's about being under muscled but if they have high levels of adiposity that has to go if that takes medication if I've addressed their diet and they've been overweight for years, I will put them on. I've been using something called amlexinox and this is a TBK1 inhibitor. It inhibits inflammation in the fat cells. It helps, right? So I will use different kinds of things. Another medication I've been using, it's in phase three drug trials. Again, these are off label,abel. It's something called tesofensin. And that is for my overeaters. So there are... Sign me up.

And I've had tremendous results, right? So again, these are off-label things that maybe are not the standard of care. And I have a very deep conversation with all my patients. I tell them the pros and cons and what you can do. But natural isn't always the right way.

In fact, 50% of the time. Well, natural is the right way until you're 10 years deep into problems and your body has no freaking clue how to get back. And so if you've been overweight and inflamed for a really long period of time. You're not coming back. You got to figure it out. I'm sorry. Here's your magic pill.

I need the magic pill. What is, when you're, how do people, are you coming to people and just saying, hey, you need to get stronger, like go to the gym and learn how to lift weights. And this will solve a lot of some, a lot of issues. Like how do you integrate kind of, so you're clearly very strong and believe in this. So how are you kind of getting someone that's over fat and you're like, hey, one of the best things we can do is learn how to deadlift right now. So the average number of physicians my patients have seen is between 10 and 12 before they get to me. By the time I am word of mouth referral, my practice is booked.

By the time they get in, they are sitting there. They are ready to do whatever it takes. Because, you know, I'm not cheap and I am not into excuses. So this is what we're doing. I definitely want your feedback, but let's get this job done. And I will stop at nothing to get what you want for yourself done. They're ready to work. They're ready to work.

For the audience, a lot of people just heard you say that if you're over fat, you need to lose body fat, but you also need to have more muscle. 100%. The ratio really matters. For someone that is overweight right now, how much do they be focusing on losing body fat? And then when do they make that transition? Great question. Is there like a body fat percentage you kind of shoot for for men and women where you can switch the mindset? I was talking to Ralph Esposito. Do you guys know him?

You should. I will connect you. He's amazing. That sounds really familiar. He's incredible. He's here in New York City. Amazing practitioner. He's a naturopath I work very closely with. And we were talking about body fat percentage. And if you think about it,

we have numbers for anything over 30% is high. And, you know, women look great at 18 or 15 and maybe 12 and lower is too low. But when you think about percentage of muscle, of lean muscle mass, so if you were to say, hey, Gabrielle, how much muscle should I have? We don't have the answer for that. Yeah. That's true. That's a good point. Lean body mass just catches everything that's not fat, but there's not muscle.

That seems like it's more subjective. Right. But can you imagine that that is probably the most, so muscle is an organ. It's a metabolic organ. It's not just for locomotion, but it is the largest area for glucose disposal, for fatty acid oxidation. It is your metabolic currency. And I don't have a number to tell you what you should be. How is that possible? This is one of the most significant statements that's been on the show probably ever. Yeah. Really? Okay. So what's the answer? This is why I was

talking to Rob. How do you find that out though? Is that like MRI, DEXA? So you do, but I don't have a number. So I have a bunch. So, so this blows my mind, right? So I can't tell you what your perfect lean body mass is. I can tell you when you put on too much body fat. Well, that's not helpful. I mean, that's great.

They're focusing on the negative part of it versus like the empowering part, which is we can get stronger. It's like having a boat with a hole in it and patching the hole and patching the hole. And only staring at the hole. Exactly. Like, hey, maybe you have a It's like the mentality of our whole country almost of like, fuck the problem

or like stare at the problem as much as you can instead of like what we can do to fix it. So perhaps we need to change the conversation. It's not about being over fat. It's really about being muscle and maybe, you know, under muscle. And then maybe it's about knowing when you come to me, I know what your blood pressure should be. I have no idea what your lean mass should be. I have no idea what your target should be.

Are you testing this with people when they come in? I do. I do. I mean, I do the best I can. I don't use a DEXA. I use something called an InBody, which does have issues with accuracy, but it's great for tracking. Yeah, as long as it's consistent, who cares? However, I know that your body should be 60% lean tissue.

I mean, that's kind of what the, you know, I train in geriatrics, and you talk about obesogenic, you know, sarcopenia. And I know that as you age, it becomes 45% lean muscle. You're not counting bone in that? No, I mean, it's lean. If you're 60% lean tissue, then are you 40% body fat? This is just what they say in terms of it could be fat, it could be bone, it could be these things. But that doesn't tell me what you should be. So we have the conversation wrong. And nobody can tell me what should your optimal lean muscle mass be for disease prevention. If you fall and break

a hip, what should you be? Right. I have no idea. And obviously there would be a range because then there's like diminishing returns if you get too much muscle. Is there? I have no idea. Yeah, what would the – I mean, but look, if you look at – Have you seen Ryan Fisher? If you go to the Mr. Olympia, I think you could probably point to a couple people who are probably over-muscled. But that's not the biggest problem.

Right. And then, you know, you're pushing the kind of genetic potential. Right. So I think that that is a real problem with the way that we are looking at things. And so that's actually what I do in my clinic. We haven't really talked about what I do, but I practice something called muscle-centric medicine. Can we take a quick break and come back and talk about that? Yes.

Awesome. Shrug family, I've got to tell you about my morning routine. You ready for it? Of course you are. Everyone wants to know my morning routine. Everyone wants to know what I'm doing as soon as I get out of bed. So here's what it is. I've got a brand new baby. So the very first thing we do is we go in and get the baby. We go to get the baby, probably have to change the diaper, but then we go downstairs to the kitchen and in the kitchen waiting for me

every day because they deliver three meals to my door daily. That's pretty cool. Every day they deliver three meals, but there's a breakfast waiting for me that is a very paleo-friendly breakfast. That's because cateredfit.com gives me the option of the classic menu, the meatless menu, boo, no meatless menu, and the paleo menu. Additionally, if I would like, they've got snacks, desserts, juices, all kinds of fun things delivered straight to my door. And if you go to cateredfit.com,

you can get $25 off your meal using shrugged 25, but it gets better. Before I even eat that meal, because I'm trying to maximize the amount of protein that I'm digesting per meal, I use my bio-optimizers, digestive enzymes. So if you would like those, I use the HCL and I use the mastzymes. Digestive enzymes, specifically protease, are very important to the amount of protein that is broken down into amino acids, which help you build muscle. It helps with your bowels. It helps with the digestion. You don't get that bloatiness. I've made it through a Christmas dinner. I've made it through a Sunday brunch with my wife in the all-you-can-eat form down at the Hotel Del Coronado, which cost me way too much money for

just food. And I made it through a Thanksgiving dinner and without any of the bloated feeling because of the Masszymes HCL combo. So get over to BioOptimizers, B-I-O-P-T-I-M-I-Z-E-R-S.com forward slash shrug. Over there, you're going to save 20% on the mass zymes. If you get the entire package, the four, including the gluten guardian and the gut bacteria, the probiotics, you're going to save well over $100 on all four of those. So get to biooptimizers.com forward slash shrug and make sure you use the coupon code shrug. And if you notice, I haven't gotten into my vegetables yet. Vegetables, super important to your health, right?

Well, I don't really have like a ton of time in the morning to go and make the beautiful salad or the beautiful vegetables and steaming all the things. So remember, I got a baby. The baby is making me have to change my life a lot. So I go to the fridge. I take out my one gallon of almond milk. I pour a double serving, that's 16 ounces, of the almond milk into my Organifi shaker bottle. And then I grab the green drink

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Get your paleo-friendly meals. You're going to love them. They're delicious. And they're delivered daily if you would like that. You can set up the schedule however you'd like to but i go daily because i want it to be fresh and then to make sure you're digesting all the protein make sure you go to mass zymes or you get your mass zymes and your hcl plus your probiotics plus your gluten guardian and biooptimizers.com forward slash shrug use the coupon code shrug you're going to save over 100 on the package of all four of those and then get

all of your micro vitamins all your vegetable needs over at organifi.com forward slash shrug and use the coupon code shrug to save 20 back Back to the show. All right. You were telling us. Yeah, tell us about your practice. We want to dig in the muscle. If I'm going to be a client of yours, how does it work? So you come to see me. So right now, my practice is at the Ash Center, and that's on 61st and 5th Avenue, New York City.

You know. Best place in the world. Yeah. New York City. Cross from Central Park. And yeah, that's where I'm at. Okay. Tell us about the process.

What do you do there? I see people, and I get them better where I'm at. Tell us about the process. What do you do there? I see people and I get them better. I like that. How would somebody, because I have a friend who I think just signed up to be a client of yours, how, once we know about you and we know we want to work with you, how does that process even work?

Because you're obviously booked. So it depends. So word of mouth, right? So if there's an individual that I've worked with and they say, listen, you've got to get this, I will make it happen. Word of mouth referrals definitely get that expedited quickly. So they message me.

Usually all my patients have my direct contact, which is, I think, any good physician allows themselves to be accessible in many ways, right? Because real healing and really getting better doesn't happen in your one-hour visit on a Tuesday. How do you manage expectations there then? Because for your own health and life, if you have X amount of clients that want to ask you every question ever at all times and they're texting you and calling you, so how do you manage those expectations?

I don't give my phone number to those people. Okay. So it's basically kind of just feeling it out. Since you're doing such complex blood work and really checking all these biomarkers and all this stuff, do you have clients that they're just going to do whatever you're going to say, or do they get really nerdy into why each supplement that you're giving them or each step and how it's kind of like playing with the dials? Sometimes.

Yeah. I try to really streamline. I'm not into making an overcomplicated program. I am into making an efficient and an effective machine of an individual. Nice. I want that. That sounded so good. I mean, what I really do is I really take away physical obstacles.

So I allow an individual to be the best operating individual that they need to be, whether it's mental, physical, whatever it is. I just, you know, I use medicine as the modality to get in. And it's really about creating that ultimate vessel of a person so they can go out and do what they do best. How much compromise are you and how much give and take are you willing to give for, say, for example, you have a client who comes and they've got a lot of problems and they need to lose weight and they need to fix all manner of lifestyle factors. But say they're like, but I really am strongly, I feel strongly about being vegan. And also, I don't want to, I only want to do yoga or something like how how much give

and take are you we have a real heart to heart at that first visit okay i wouldn't fuck with her so you're done being a vegan yes i am whatever it takes i am so sorry so i it's not that it's not that i would discourage someone from being vegan or vegetarian right because there are individual differences that work for other people. But if you are showing up at my door, you're willing to do whatever. We have a conversation. I had a conversation two weeks ago of a woman who really felt strongly about

being one way. And I said, I don't want to continue this visit anymore. And here's what I'm going to lay out. Some very basic things that I need you to agree to. If you want to get better. If that answer is no, then let's help find you a different physician. What are those basics? Lift weights?

Yeah. Lift heavy weights? For her, it was, I mean, she was eating full carbohydrates, not lifting weights, didn't want to do supplements, didn't want to take these things that she only wanted natural ways. That's not really my fit. And you want to have a good relationship with your physician or your provider as well as your patient. Yeah. Because it's my time as well.

I'm getting 36 years old next year. That's it? Do I need? Yeah. Stop it. This testosterone supplement thing, if I pop another child out is going to rear its, uh, it's going to start creeping to the top of the list very soon. Like if I hit the 40 number, I'm going, I'm going to this, to this, to this, um, the supplementation

of testosterone. What's wrong with it? Yeah, I know. But what, how do, what do I do? I want you to tell me what the, like, how do I start to learn about this? Usually besides just talking to you. Like, if you're my doctor. Okay.

And I'm telling you I'm turning 40 in four and a half years. I'm done having kids. Let's find out. I'm ready to be a gangster until I'm 120 years old. I'm in. I'm in. Can I call you? Of course.

Okay. Tell me what the process is to this because it's going to be real. In terms of coming to see me as a patient? Well, no. Or just like, i can't fly across the country twice a week to see you unfortunately come once and i listen a lot of my patients can only see me once a year because they're in very yeah interesting places what am i going to live forever like like do you want to god your skin would be really fucking wrong 120 would be

rad i guess i don't want to make it that I guess the thing is, when you start supplementing with testosterone or when you start taking these supplements, as somebody that's my age, I have like a... So when you are young, I cycle it. So if you are young and you want to maintain your fertility, I will not put you on a full-blown testosterone. I don't care how low it is. I want to maintain your fertility.

Yeah. I also won't necessarily start you with testosterone, so I'll start you with something like Clomid. Let's see if we can get your body producing its own testosterone and why. Maybe I'll use Clomid. Maybe I'll use HCG. We'll see how you respond, get you sleeping, test you for sleep apnea. I don't know.

Let's see what's going on. Do you have metals in your body? Do you have lead in your testicles? I don't know. I don't know either. Now I feel like I need it now. Wait, lead in your testicles. Tell me about this. Heavy metals can affect...

Where do I get them? So I'll stay away. CBS. Oh, you mean the metals. No one thought I was funny. What is this? Come on. You just frightened me. I was so scared. I had heavy metal in my balls. It's from food, right? From things you're ingesting. Eating tuna.

Or mercury. Too much pokey. It's from food, right? From things you're ingesting. Eating tuna. Or mercury. Any of these things. Too much pokey. Yeah. Too much pokey. I love pokey. Or if you shoot weapons, you can accumulate heavy metals and things like that in your body. Oh, that's interesting.

I hadn't heard that. How does that work? Just exposed to a lot of dust and dumb shit, depending on where you are. I would love to get back on the the concept that we're on right before the break about muscle mass yeah let's talk about it is making five thousand dollars a month enough for what that's right like you have no idea because you don't know what else is going on so i feel like people they they they talk about absolute numbers all the time my testosterone is 500 or whatever and the ratio of testosterone to other things is what puts it in context, right?

And so if you're making $5,000 a month, that could be really, really good or it could be really, really bad. You have no idea. So for your idea of how much muscle mass do you need, how much body fat do you need, it's good to know the absolute number for both those things. But I feel like the ratio of how much muscle mass to how much body fat percentage is kind of like the next step there where we got to figure out how to measure the muscle mass piece. But I feel like the ratio is probably more important than the absolute number. Do you feel like that was likely the case? I think that it is really important, but I think that again, we have to look at the individual. So if someone is genetically

lean, but they still don't have enough muscle mass that ratio will be good but they're still really kind of frail so a lot of my elderly patients that say or i don't have them now but when i used to have older individuals that were their body fat was really low but their muscle tissue was i don't know 40 pounds on their body that's low yeah but if you were to compare those ratios the ratio would be Right. I think that it's really important that we have a sense of based, and I don't even know how this is possible, based on your body type, what your muscle mass should be. Yeah. We just don't have a guidepost to what that is. Yeah.

I mean, you're talking about older individuals. Like, for someone who's, you know, 60, 70, 80 years old, like, why is muscle mass important for longevity outside of you know keeping you from falling and breaking your hip and movement based it's your metabolic engine it is your amino acid reservoir if you were to get cancer if you were to hurt yourself if you were to get an infection yeah it mobilizes the amino acids the more you have the better and once you get to a certain age you can, it's very hard to put on muscle tissue. That becomes a really big problem. And we know that if there's a catastrophic event,

when you're younger and you're driven by hormones, you might hurt yourself, you lose a little bit of muscle, and it kind of has gradations. But when you are older and you stop training or sick for a week, the muscle mass goes from A to b really a lot lower so i know that people can't see but the trajectory is not just a little bit it is tremendous you're talking about the amino acid pool and like getting cancer something like that and having that that reserve amount to kind of feed yourself if you end up bedridden or i was reading something the

other day about like if you're a burn victim and you're in your're old like you need to have that reserve muscle mass to keep you alive and I forget what the exact stats were on this particular study but it was the people that had more muscle mass were much more likely to stay alive for a lot longer period of time. The more muscle mass the less mortality. It's never obviously too late to start weight training and gaining muscle but as you said the older you, the harder that is. Is it a thing that like the whole concept of like muscle memory, where maybe when you were in your teens and 20s, you trained a lot and then you left it for a while, maybe for 20, 30 years, you didn't work out. And then maybe you hit 50 again. You're like, I'm going to get back into this. Is it easier for

those people to, to get that muscle mass back than someone who's never worked out? This is my opinion. I would say yes, of course, because there is some concept of training. At some point it was healthier. Again, I haven't read much in terms of that, but for an individual who has never trained and has gone through life, you have issues with fat infiltration into the muscle. So the quality of the tissue becomes different. You know, you see a marbled steak. Yeah. Delicious. I know.

I don't eat steak, so I don't know. You see a marbled steak. Yeah, I stopped listening. Wait, you don't eat steak? I'm kidding. I was going to say, I thought that's all we ate. Come on, okay. I'm just kidding.

Yeah. That actually happens to individuals as they age. Yeah. You get something called anabolic resistance. While you are younger, the most important thing you can do for your health is maintain your tissue. And not just maintain it, but build it. I sometimes wonder when I'm watching, like, whatever fishing community tribes on National Geographic or whatever documentary. And they're, like, doing all these functional movements and things.

And, like, I want to be a a big strong human that when i walk in the room people like oh that guy definitely works out and like you want to be bigger but when i see those people they all look like very lean human and it's not so much the body fat but is it beneficial for us to be like bulkier muscle mass because it doesn't appear like that appears to be like a western culture and kind of like a coastal thing almost like if i'm in san diego i gotta compete against a whole lot of yoked people to find my mate and i like when i see videos like that they're pulling fishing lines in from miles out and whatever they're they don't have these big bulky strong bodies like we do they also have a very different lifestyle right they're moving all the time in fact they probably need less protein right because they

are constantly in motion and they've maintained a way of non-domestication whereas us here we're very domesticated we are you might train hard it's true you might train hard for an hour two hours a day but the rest of the time you're not pulling and doing and of course form follows function your body adapts to its environment yeah yeah and what are their goals i mean the people that are living tribal societies aren't, how swole can I get? They're trying to live. Well, I just wonder if what we do and our perception of it actually is in line with the genetic makeup of what we're supposed to be doing. Or maybe like what we are designed to be doing. Because if we were built to be bulkier, thicker humans, then you go to people that are literally living off the land and they have access to plenty of protein.

They've got access to this stuff like they're living a life. But they're not doing heavy resistance load training. Well, that's what I'm getting at. So is lifting weights. Yes, there's like structural integrity that everybody needs and you have to have very healthy muscles. They clearly have that. And they've got well-conditioned muscles. They can clearly have that. And they've got well-conditioned muscles. They can clearly do that.

But they don't walk around looking like the juiced-up jacked cow that's like this. I don't think that's necessary. I mean, not to say that it's wrong. I don't think that's necessary for anybody. But it's highly individual even culturally too because if you look at people who are living like the Inuit and like they're eating a super high-fat animal fat diet and they're living in a super cold place like maybe they have a higher body fat than people in warmer places but that's super functional and useful for them so I think there is a variance but I don't think there's probably any culture that needs to be we're flexible species you know pounds

of muscle there aren't many Ben Pekulskis floating around in tribal communities like that doesn't exist and I wonder like in the, in the idea of like, clearly there is no such thing as like, what is right, but is carrying all of this muscle mass, like, is it maybe not optimal?

I don't think, I wouldn't even think that that's a problem. And I'll tell you why, because the majority of the people don't have that. Yeah. That is a very, Ben is elite. Right. One in a, don't tell him that. Don't tell you why. Because the majority of the people don't have that. Yeah. That is a very, Ben is elite. Right.

Don't tell him that. He's the best. Shout out Ben. He knows he's my favorite. Why is that guy everyone's favorite? Because he's the nicest guy ever. Ever. Yeah.

Anyway. That guy. He's that guy. I love you, Ben. Jesus. We all love Ben. We just really fanboyed a girl over Ben. I send him video messages. Can I come to your gym? Hi, Ben. And he We all love Ben. We just really fanboyed a girl over Ben. I send him video messages.

Can I come to your gym? Hi, Ben. And he doesn't respond, does he? No. He definitely does. He better. Go ahead. Sorry.

What you're saying is that's not the issue we need to be focused on because there's way more people that are under-muscled. There's a lot of myths surrounding I'm going to get bulky. Right. These kinds of things that are wrong. And we have to make up for our environment somehow. Is it true that the more calories you eat, the more likely you are to die early? People that live for a really long time kind of eat just right around maintenance. Is that accurate?

I think that the overconsumption of anything speeds up these processes. However, when you think about longevity and calorie restriction, we do know that there is benefit to calorie restriction. The question then becomes at the end of life. So if we talk about longevity and we're talking about five years, do you want to live your five years yoked and strong? 100%. Or do you want to live your or your last five years the other way.

You're really leading the witness right now. Would you rather be jacked or anything else? 100% jacked. Do you want to be jacked or a pussy? Sure. You could calorie restrict and you could be tinier and littler bones.

Tack five years onto the end when you're old or enjoy being healthy and fit now. I want to have good teeth forever. Do you know much about total changes here, but still on the longevity topic? Do you know much about fasting and autophagy and senescent cells and that whole world? I think that it's clear that fasting is excellent for that. Can you explain to people what that is? Fasting upregulates these mechanisms in our body that kind of clean out the body, clean out the cells and yeah,

help regeneration and get rid of cells that are sick or broken or toxic. So my current understanding of it, which certainly could be not all the way accurate, is that one of the models for aging right now is that you, over time, build up all these senescent cells where they are cells that don't all the way die and get consumed and processed and go away. But they kind of stay in your body, still producing kind of metabolic byproducts that aren't good for you. But over time, throughout your life, you build up more and more and more of them until there's like a tipping point. And then once there's so many of them, you just kind of can't go on anymore. Is that accurate? I don't know you know outside my scope what are your thoughts on uh testing for average people where they're sending

in their spit and doing 23andme and tele years and all of these things my gut bacteria that we yeah all those tests there's lots of there's lots of like conflicting evidence about like i've sent in spit twice, and it gave me two completely different whatever. What are your thoughts on that kind of stuff in general? Is it a waste of money for most people? I don't think so. I don't think that we know enough.

I do use something called Opus 23, which gets the data from Ancestry and 23andMe, and we run it through algorithms. So, for example, I had one patient that I was putting on rhodiola, and he wasn't feeling great and it was weird. It's a supplement, right? And it turned out that it upregulated certain negative aspects in his body, actually upregulated his prostate cancer cells.

I mean, again, there's no conclusive data to say that that is accurate, but the point is, is that there are genetic individual variabilities that some haven't you seen some people that take ashwagandha and they feel amazing right and then you have another guy taking the exact same thing and say well i feel like shit i don't feel any different there are certain supplements and certain chemicals that work well for other people cumt right so some people are fast metabolizers of caffeine and the other ones are slow and you give them a shot of coffee and they are you got a week and out bugging out yeah so there is something to be said for understanding your genetic profile i suppose that's a key point though is using this stuff

properly and being able to understand it because a lot of people take it and they're like okay it told me you know because you do like the the 23 and me and it's like i get mine back and it's like you are more likely to be kind of short than a bruna and i'm like yeah i got that but like but if you can if you can understand the information that's coming back to you you can absolutely use it to your advantage so is that stuff that you would have clients do in addition to the other depends on how hard their case is okay but that's also like what doug was talking about earlier like i so i did the scoop your poop put it in the thing shake it up send it out for your gut bacteria thing and i hit up one of actually it might have been killer k kara um one of one of galpin's people and i was like if i get this back how much should

i like be putting into it and she was like no really like nothing like that That's a day. You have to do 30 days or ish in a row and then test all of that stuff out. How often are you getting the 23andMe or whatever testing you're done to actually know? I think that that's a really good point. I think that there's a lot that we don't know. And I think that you have to be a very smart consumer as to the information that you're taking in. So there is clinical... Yeah there is clinical sold that shit right but there is clinical practice and someone who's been doing it a long time and there is the other aspect of how you feel you kind of combine those two that's the art of medicine or the art of a good coach yeah teaching people how they feel is a hard one how they here's how i do it. You feel fine.

Stop your fucking crying. You look yoked. You're done. You should be happy you're yoked now. That's it. Write your three things you're grateful for and get out of my office. Yoked, yoked, and yoked.

You just mentioned ashwagandha. I went to examine.com the first time I heard about ashwagandha and looked it up, and it was like research studies for like 50 different things, and it was in a positive direction for pretty much every topic at some level. can you explain what ashwagandha is and any benefits that i can tell you it's an herb and i can tell you it's an adaptogen and that for whatever reason i can't tell you exactly how it works but i will tell you that it helps with what

i've seen in terms of cortisol regulation and keeping individuals augmented if they're under high stress. Also, I've seen that it helps with thyroid, thyroid conversion, T4 to T3. This is highly individual, but when you're working with a client, how long are you normally working with them? And is there an ideal where you're like, I'd love to work with you for six to eight months and then have you be able to go off on your own? Or is it just completely dependent on who you're working with? Totally depends. Yeah. I love to have my patients that are doing weight loss graduate.

Right. You're done. You're great. You've now learned what you need to. We've got you under control. I'll see you once a year. The elite athletes and the operators that I work with though they depending on where they are in their cycle that is a different kind of ball game right okay uh you mentioned rhodiola a second ago I was

reading the aging brain you know just recently and for the for the most part it was just very basic advice everything we've been talking about diet nutrition sleep and on and on but they but they mentioned rhodiola as one thing that had been shown to help delay the onset of dementia. Let's talk about that. Yes. Let's talk about that. Cool. I don't think that it is – there's all the supplements that you can do in the world for your brain.

The brain is – depending on what the problem is, it can be type 3 diabetes of the brain. So Alzheimer's, cognitive health. I hear the type 3 diabetes thing mentioned all the time, which fucking scares the shit out of me. So I want to talk about that too. You're actually not at risk unless you have vascular issues. I've actually never heard of that. Okay, so let's talk about this. So everyone talks about supplements for the brain.

Great. If your foundation metabolic processes are off, I don't care what the fuck you're putting in your brain. Okay? This is very important. So I ran actually a memory and aging clinic for two years. Stop. Oh. Why did it take us an hour and 20 minutes to get there?

So I treated Alzheimer's patients, dementia. I was on the wards taking care of these multiple different kinds of cognitive disorders. The number one, there's a few things. One of the biggest things is obesity, midlife obesity that starts in your 30s. The higher the waist circumference, the lower the brain volume. I used to image people's brains. This is one of the studies that I worked on. It actually never ended up getting published.

Maybe parts of the data set will get published. And we looked at cognitive performance and brain volume as it related to body weight. And there are other studies out there. So we know that midlife, so Alzheimer's, cognitive impairment, memory issues starts in your 30s. Wow. This prevention and these things, rhodiola and all of this other stuff, it's kind of as if you have a house and you're putting drapes up. Not helpful if the house is broken. Yeah. if you have a house and you're putting drapes up. Not helpful if the house is broken. The number one thing that individuals need to do in their 30s

is have a metabolism that works. Your blood sugar needs to be controlled. Your adipose tissue needs to be controlled. There is also issues with vascular damage. These things begin very early on. You address that. You do omegas and then you do all the whatever that is. Then you're looking at optimal cognitive function later on.

And, of course, exercise, BDNF, and these things. And you know what the number one regulator of metabolism is? Muscle. Exactly. So if you want to talk about prevention of Alzheimer's and cognitive impairment, the solution is actually muscle tissue and managing vascular damage. And I have seen hundreds of patients. How much is minimizing vascular damage related to high blood sugar?

So it just depends on where your deficit is. So there's vascular dementia, and then there's Alzheimer's dementia. So there's type three diabetes of the brain, which is blood sugar. These are kind of insulin regulated issues. And then there's vascular damage, which usually it's either two separate things for the most part. And that is the executive functioning. So the, you'll find people that are able to do everyday tasks and have no memory problems, but can't balance their checkbook. Right. And have you seen that? Or it can't use the phone or get kind of confused in that way. No, luckily you guys haven't seen that. That's more of a vascular picture. And then those that are, where did I put my keys? Or I can't

remember that. That's more of an Alzheimer's. We don't see a lot of this because everyone we hang out with looks like this. Works out all the time. Yeah. Like we, our bubble is different. My grandma has dementia and it's absolutely terrifying. If I got her lifting weights. Once the damage is done.

I know you can't like overcome it, but do you start to like. You can slow the progression down. You can. Dale Bredesen does a lot of work with that. I know you can't overcome it, but do you start to slow things down? You can. Dale Bredesen does a lot of work with that. He's in California. I don't know if he's at Davis or where he is, but he's a longtime researcher. He talks about seeing copper ratios, metals, hormones, of course, affect the brain and memory. But before you supplement and you want to do all these things,

it's really about getting your metabolism under control. Sometimes I feel like just lifting weights is, like, it helps all these things, but it also tells your body, if you don't stand up, you're going to get fucking crushed. And it forces it to be really smart. And we have to, like, challenge ourselves because you can literally live and not have to think. You just hit the button. The Amazon thing shows up.

But we go to the gym. Toilet paper comes in the mail. Yeah, like, I don't even have to know where to go to get this stuff anymore. And now, like, I mean, man, dementia is crazy. My mom's dealing with this. Or not my mom, but my grandma. And my mom's taking care of her. And, like, it's really crazy. And I is crazy. My mom's dealing with this. Or not my mom, but my grandma. And my mom's taking care of her. And, like, it's really crazy.

And I see it. And I'm like, man, my mom is going to live forever. And I have to. And, like, we talk about working out. We talk about eating well. It's a non-option. Yeah. It's a non-option and it needs to happen now.

And the people that I see that actually, and this is just from clinical research and experience of the brain, the imaging that I had done for people, is it tends to be, there's a lot of women that put themselves last. You know, they're a little portly, really taking care of their very caretakers. And I find that it's this silent killer in this middle lifespan. You almost need to approach it with people like that, where if you want to be the caretaker, you have to take care of yourself. Non-negotiable. Yeah. But I feel like this is a really empowering message like type 3 diabetes sounds scary but to me it means that it's a preventable thing that you can take care of exactly carol dweck there you go but that's that's it because so i think for so long people thought okay well alzheimer's runs my family i'm fucked like i it's i'm a ticking time bomb and now we know that especially the more information, the more educated we are, the earlier on,

that we can do things to help ourselves. I think that's a really positive message. Yeah. And I think really getting to the basics. Again, there's all these supplementation and all of these things, but really it's the basic fundamental house. What are you living in and how is that working for you? Going through periods of fasting maybe yeah you know there's this is a conversation that we've had a couple times since this weekend

has started where it's it's the fundamentals it's the basics but that's not as sexy as taking a nootropic or an adaptogen or taking a weird test and like injecting yourself with something weird like people don't mean all that sounds really I mean, all that sounds really fun. Right, exactly. And it sounds quicker. Let's try it. I will. It sounds exciting. 100%. And we all want to do that stuff,

but we also make sure that we have the foundation sorted out. And that's, I think, the toughest part is when we live in a world of instant gratification where people go online and see the next pill and the next you'll lose 20 pounds in a week if you eat keto, whatever. It's a lot harder to convince people that you still have to do this hard foundational work and be consistent.

But that's the answer. And this is where a ketogenic diet can be good, which I do think it does have benefit. And then on the flip side, when you think about maintaining that, it's really about the muscle. You can do a ketogenic diet for therapeutic treatment but if you want to have as much muscle mass as you can if that's the organ of longevity that should be the target yeah i i was gonna say i i maybe it was chris bell that said this maybe you told me about this but um sometimes i, like, does everybody really need to lift weights? Yes. And then what I'm really – I mean, I agree with you.

But then I think about it and I'm like, maybe they shouldn't. Like, maybe not everybody. But they don't really – what the thing is, I think, is you don't have to lift weights like I do. You don't have to be able to deadlift 400 pounds. Okay, fine. But you can go there, but you don't have to be able to deadlift 400 pounds but you can't i mean you can go there but you don't have to you need to have you need to lift weights because of all of these other things and

if deadlifting 400 becomes something that you do because you're creating a body that's capable of doing that then you can go there but i've actually like always kind of wondered like do you need to snatch clean and jerk well probably not But you should definitely be strong. You should definitely lift weights. There's so many benefits to having this muscle mass and being able to prevent brain disease. Who knew? And all of a sudden, this is coming. The body thrives on challenge.

Yes. Why would you take away that capacity to rise to any challenge? My patients that come in and tell me they just do Pilates and yoga, that doesn't work. It doesn't work for me because my job is to get them what they want. You gotta challenge yourself. So, I, you, I, that's my personal belief. So, hold on. But I think what you're saying is, to me, maybe to me, doing 20 pushups in a row and deadlifting my body weight is the challenge.

Yeah, so if I were to play devil's advocate, you say like doing yoga and Pilates isn't enough. They're moving. Their joints are healthy. Their brain cognition is there because it's challenging stuff. They're progressing. And they are moving their body and holding poses. So there's an isometric component to what they're doing, but there's no external load.

Does that matter? This is not scientific data. This is only my personal. We're thinking out loud here. You're just smarter than us. Nope. But here's the thing. I think it's really important to have integrity as a clinician

of what the data says and what my opinion is. So this is totally my personal opinion. I think that when you say not i think that we often need to do the thing we don't want to do yeah whatever that is in life because you're in the job of getting better yeah whatever that means in multiple domains and pillars so yes i do believe they need to work hard especially if they don't want to i just can't believe work hard meaning arguing against lifting no i now. That's a weird devil's advocate. So here's another thing.

I didn't expect you to go down. Well, I, like, so I lifted all the weights, and it led me to a place where I was injured all the time. That's a different story. Yeah, totally. And then it made me think, like, well, specifically, story time. Here we go. So competitive CrossFit, all the things.

Competitive Olympic lifting. I'm lifting everything I possibly can to be the biggest, strongest human that exists, right? Awesome. story time here we go so competitive crossfit all the things competitive olympic lifting i'm lifting everything i possibly can to be the biggest strongest human that exists right and then you get to it and you realize oh shit we got we went too far i'm banged up and now i've got a gym full of people that i've been telling for the last six years of my life that i need you to be as big and strong and if you keep doing it you're gonna end up broken like me so what did i do well i went and found the yoga studio and what i learned is those people actually have some really good things to say yes like now you start taking in yoga classes you realize i really need to start

managing stress um i can't just walk around and be a freaking meathead all the time because you're just like jacked and tanned yeah it's it's too much for your body to keep that going. So when I'm in the yoga studio, I'm like, man, it'd be awesome if you guys went and lifted just twice a week. Just let's get some lean muscle built. Like, let's complete this package. But there's also a piece of me when I was doing that, that it was like, these people are doing really good, like, downregulation work.

Like, maybe they're getting a ton of stress in their life at work maybe there's like a lot of external things that they're dealing with and the best thing that they possibly could do is go meditate for an hour and really get the stress out of their body and now yes i think that they need to be in the gym two days a week but maybe you don't maybe the amount that you do it needs to be talked about you also bring a very good point up are these trained or untrained individuals yeah they're trained individuals right yeah so they have um an area of flexibility yeah so just like you who has trained for years till you broke yourself yeah and. And now you incorporate other modalities,

which by the way, if you've been through something, you've become that 10 X is you, right? You become even better. So what you are saying is right, but you are taking trained individuals, not taking individuals with really wide waistlines who are now at risk for

Alzheimer's dementia and telling them or cardiovascular dementia, whatever, whatever that disorder is, telling them to do less. It's still going back to what Gabrielle said earlier, where it's you were the meathead who wanted to lift all the heavy weights, and it was a challenge and hard and difficult and kind of unpleasant maybe at times for you to go mess with Pilates and yoga. So that's why you should go do it. I think that's reiterating. You've got to just do things that are challenging your body and different maybe than what you think is easy and fun yeah

it's like i learned a lot in that process and it i had never not been around meatheads like i'd never not been amongst these people and all of a sudden i like entered into the space and i was like instead of hating it which I did for so long and thinking they're all stupid it was like maybe I'll just enter into that space and think like what if they know everything and then you start to learn a lot about man there's some real benefit to being in here but I wonder if the benefit is the the extreme benefit that I got from it was specific to me because I was so far on the other end and now all of a sudden I was just filling the holes or man maybe if these people just did some like air squats and push-ups coupled with their awesome yoga practice it's funny how entering into things

with an open mind is like a positive thing that's weird right it's like it's magic I want everyone to know how mature I am right now I wanted to ask you because you mentioned working with a naturopath. Yeah. I wanted you to tell us about like how that factors into the work you do with your clients. And even for you personally, like Eastern Medicine, do you go in for like cupping and acupuncture and all these kinds of things recovery wise? Can you talk about that a bit? Sure. So I do do acupuncture. Okay. I think that I can't tell you why it works, but I can tell you that it seems to work really well in terms of injury and stress.

I can go in totally tachycardic, running around all day, just being completely chill. Love that. And I also think it's been around forever. So again, this goes back to modalities that have been around for a very long period of time, not reinventing the wheel and not dismissing the things that maybe we're not familiar with. I, who are a naturopath, for me, I mean, I talk to Ralph,

Dr. Ralph Esposito, who you should definitely have on. He does male hormones phenomenally. Can we just get your cell phone and just tell him where we're at? That'd be cool. He's incredible. I get that perspective. I am trained as a Western physician. I am trained in functional medicine, but the foundation of my training is nutritional sciences and Western medicine.

So by having a team and other individuals to call on to say, hey, what do you think about this? What do you think about rhodiola? It takes a lot of time to actually look at the data to be able to have an intelligent conversation. And that is outside the scope of the things that I can do, right? I read about peptides or this kind of injectable, but there are individuals that are trained very specifically in supplements and alternative medicine and traditional Chinese medicine. And I think that when it comes to healing and it comes to an individual's wellness, we work as a team. I never discount other practitioners. I never discount other individuals. Maybe they're doing ketogenic diet or maybe they're

doing a vegan or vegetarian diet because it's really not about the ego of the individual provider. It's really about how do we team up to get this individual better on the right path. And I think that there's a component of humility and being really humble and saying, this is not about me. This is not what I think. This is how do we do this as a team to really just get this person better. That's functional medicine at its best. Is a functional medicine practitioner the same thing as a naturopath?

Are those synonymous or are there subtle differences? Well, I'm not a naturopath, so it's hard for me to speak upon how their exact training goes. I think functional medicine is is an institution it's a training that providers can go through there's a4m there's age management medicine i've done all of those and i've learned from each of those you have to be a medical doctor to be a functional medicine practitioner i don't know if you do. I'm not sure. You talk to Chris Kresser. I do know who he is. I think he's an acupuncturist.

I thought he was a functional medicine doctor. I think he's definitely functional medicine. But I'm not sure what his whole background is. I feel like you maybe don't have to be a medical doctor. We should check that before we say it. I think that that's where you work as a team.

There's always people that don't know. If there's something I don't know, I need to find out the person that does. And then I can integrate that into my practice. But the baseline of my practice is medicine. I'm traditionally trained. But again, trained in nutritional sciences for seven years. Well, now that I know you have expertise on brain health, I'd love to dig back into that. When you said that brain volume or gray matter or whatever you said was correlated with a decrease there, was correlated with a large waistline. I thought that was really interesting.

Do you have other little things that you learned like that that you can spout off the top of your head? I will tell you that high caloric intake, high levels of glucose, high levels of insulin in the blood are, it crosses the blood-brain barrier. So when we think of diabetes in the body, we think of it just as the organs. Oh, I have diabetic nephropathy and all of these joints and tingling of my fingers, but there's actually diabetes in the brain. And that is, if you're getting it in the body, that's absolutely happening in the brain. And oftentimes you might get brain symptoms before you're getting the physical symptoms in your body. Yeah. Are there any tests that you can do to see if like, if specifically for your brain, you're, you're degrading without,

you can do an fMRI. So what is that? So that is an imaging of the brain that looks at the brain volume. There are things that you can do. If you are at risk. You can go to these institutions where they can look at the way in which everything fires and kind of see the networks. That's not common. It's not standard of care to look at brain imaging. However, if you are going to a cognitive clinic, and this is usually for over the age of 65. This is not someone unless you have a hereditary genetic predisposition. And when I say genetic predisposition, I mean when the Alzheimer's are starting at 30, which it's a very rare case. Do you know anything about the Halo neuroscience?

I've heard they're great. You know, Shane has one. So, yeah, I mean, I've heard it's great. But I don't know if you want to share I'd love to hear more we interviewed the guy it seemed like very cool stuff it seems like another one of those things though where it's like that's the tweaking for high performers

where you know maybe somebody like sees it on Instagram and they're like a nightmare and have a lot of on the performance side of things I think a lot of where his research came in though was on the medical side of things, I think a lot of where his research came in, though, was on the medical side and getting people able to go and lift weights or able to move and function and how can we start stimulating different parts of the brain.

Because the performance side was way, way down the line when we did the show with him. He just started incorporating this with high level athletes most of the research that was done on that product or for halo was on a lot of brain disease and so there are some did i get that right we had that company where he was helping cure epilepsy by by actually doing real brain surgery cutting open the skull and putting electrodes on the brain itself and i don't know the exact stats there but people that are having seizures like every 15 minutes all day long went went to like one a week or something like that like it was a it was a really vast change and then he took that knowledge and then got out of that company and started the halo thing yeah going back to your question or the other little pearls so we know

that when you sleep the glial cells the the cells in the brain help clear so sleep is actually preventative for cognitive impairment down the line. It's a metabolic organ like everything else. Yeah. And that is really important. And then, of course, the anthocyanins and the bright colored berries, those things. I use makia berry.

And that is a powder from the Amazon. It's a berry from the Amazon. The nutrients that we have, for example, spinach. I was just at ASN, which is the American Society of Nutrition up in Boston. And it talked about that the nutrients that we eat. So, for example, let's say we're to take spinach and it has lutein for the eyes. A lot of the operators that need good night vision, aside from the five pairs of goggles in their closet. You know who I'm talking about. Anyway, that once you pick that spinach within, if you don't eat it within a day or two, and usually we don't eat it until three, four, five days later.

It actually has about 20% of the nutrient value left. Wow. For all nutrients or for the one you mentioned? Lutein is one of the things that respires, but also a lot of the anti-cancer causing nutrients in foods in general that are living that we pick. And also the time of year that it's harvested. It's typically, thank you, a very dead-ish type food. Isn't that why a lot of times people say that frozen fruits and vegetables can be better? Because at least they're picked like right at the moment and then you can thaw them.

Only berries. The rest are blanched. The rest are blanched and they're depleted of nutrients. You mentioned anthocyanins. Anthocyanins. So for brain health, when we think about brain health, it's really important to get these kinds of things. And in my practice, I use makia berry, which is a berry from the Amazon. Blueberries have it too as well, right?

It does. But again... Like a more normal berry for people that go to the grocery store. You don't have to go to the Amazon. Yes, you do. There are many cool things you can do in the Amazon. Like ayahuasca. Anyway.

There's 40-pound mosquitoes down there, too. Gross. You mentioned, this is kind of like a, I just want to make sure I ask it before I forget, but we were joking earlier about gratitude journals, but I want to talk, we're talking about brain health. I want to talk about like mental health, too, and that aspect of it, which is often massive for a lot of people who are unhealthy and have been unhealthy for a really long time. What's how, how does that kind of side of it work with your practice and what kind of things do you recommend

and have people work on? The medicine of the brain is a huge part of it, depending on the individual's need. Okay. I always get to know my patients. I always know their strengths and I also, probably more importantly, know their weaknesses. And I know where their weaknesses are in their thinking capacity.

I did two years of psychiatry at University of Louisville. We got a whole day of talking to you now. So I worked as a psychiatrist. You got crazy people. You got overweight people. You got yoked people.

Yeah. Brain. Lots of crazy people. Especially so close overweight people. You've got yoked people. Yeah. Brain. Lots of crazy people. Especially so close to Ashley. They've got along so well. We text each other. Both my parents are psychologists, too. Okay.

Amazing. So Ashley is my new best friend. Yeah. We're DFS. You guys are out. We're in. You're out. We knew that an hour and a half ago.

We were like, no, we're starting. We're starting. We're like, sorry, girl chat's over here. Doug and I were just over here hanging out with the christmas tree very unusual anyway um what were you asking i was mental health i was trying to get the coffee in the microphone and i just realized it didn't work too many things pat my head yeah yeah positivity is really important prior to positivity knowing your own self-talk every patient I've ever had everyone that I've ever worked with has about the four four same

stories whatever their story is I'm never gonna get fit I'm never gonna lose weight I'm not smart enough uh and I'm gonna get sick that's one person's four there's another four everybody has their own four. And it's this repetitive thought pattern, which makes sense. It keeps them on high alert. And it's the brain doing what the brain does best, which is spew out thoughts. It doesn't mean you have to believe them. They're usually wrong. But it's really knowing you're underpinning and really know what your inner dialogue says.

Because I guarantee you it's the same four things. Talking growth versus fixed mindset, though, if you have someone come in that it's like typical excuses, fixed mindset, I can't, yeah, do you, can that, can a growth mindset be taught? When I do an intake, I always identify the physical, but I always identify the mental. And here's how I do it.

Number one, I figure out challenges and how they respond to them. Doug jumps out of a, just listening to him talking about being excited to jump out of a plane. I know his growth mindset. You get nervous and you still do it. So I identify if they're a growth or the fixed mindset. I also identify what kind of person are they? Are they going to be motivated by what I tell them? Are they going to have their internal motivation? Are they going to just be rebellious and I'm not going to do it? Defensive. Or are they going to be a questioner? I know that I will get them to do it as long as I show them this study, this study, this study, this study, and here's your program

and now you're on your way. So once I identify who I'm working with and then of course where their weaknesses are, then I can create a comprehensive program to take their weakness and fix that. It's much more important to know where you're weak than where you're strong. Who cares where you're strong? Yeah. Where you fail. Yeah. It's essential.

So, but are there cases where you're going through this kind of intake process and you're like this person, I mean, cause you said earlier, like by the time they get to you, they're usually either pretty fed up, tired, desperate, ready to really make a change at this point. But are there still people that make it through that are total like fixed? The conversation goes like this. I'm going to give you one month. If you come back in one month and you have not executed these things that I'm asking you and you have not changed at least one of this, and I mean change here in your mind,

please do not rebook. And I will tell my front staff so that they know. Nice. Savage. Are you doing much program design with these people? No, I outsource them. When it comes to training, I outsource them to the best. So Kara, Megan, you know, there's people that that's what they do.

Megan Helwig. Yep. That's people at Urban Wellness here. Emily Kybird. She's amazing. I train with Melissa Paris. She's amazing. So you use the people that do what they do well.

You can't be great at everything. Because then you just, again, again it goes back to the ego then you just do a disservice to people yeah and then we connect and we figure out how are they recovering how's their heart rate what are their inflammatory markers how their hormones are you getting your period we talk about that estrogen levels you know the, well, the birth control thing seems to be kind of a hot topic with a lot of. I'm over it. Oh. All right. Fine.

We'll talk about it. Everyone should get pregnant. Everyone should just pull and pray. Really? Should everyone get pregnant? No. Okay. Pull and pray.

Thanks for saying that. So unprofessional. Don't leave me hanging. I'm so unprofessional. I'm still hanging. All the way hanging. I am still hanging on your. Do't leave me hanging. I'm so unprofessional. I'm still hanging. Get knocked up. I am still hanging on your... You really made you work for that.

15 seconds of just feeling insecure. I was just going back and thinking about how unprofessional I am right now. No, pull and pray is a very technical term. You pull and pray. I can't think of a better, more literal way to do it. Oral birth control. I am not a gynecologist. I don't prescribe of a better, more literal way to do it. Oral birth control. I am not a gynecologist. I don't prescribe oral birth control.

I think that eating your estrogen, this is my personal opinion, is not a great idea. I will tell you what I've seen in my clinic that it also affects muscle metabolism. So when they are taking these hormones, it is harder for them to, it changes the ability for muscle protein synthesis and i don't think that we know much about it andy's lab is doing more stuff cara and i talk about this all the time they just did a really cool study i know i don't know if they published it or if we can talk about it probably not yeah go find it i feel cool that i know now you're an insider don't worry guys inner circle yeah i i just haven't seen, I feel that when you're taking oral birth control, you're trying to mask whatever problem that is, whether it's heavy periods or, I guess, not wanting to get pregnant is not a problem. But I think that.

It's a big problem for some of us. That's a big problem. No. It's just not, it's not ideal. I think that there are other ways to do it that maybe don't have long-term effects. This is just from what I've seen. I've seen that then when they go off, it's very hard for them to get their period. Not everybody.

I went off, I mean, before we want to get personal, I was using hormonal birth control for about 15 years, literally to fix the problem of not wanting to be pregnant. I didn't have any kind of like period issues or like, you know, reasons why it was prescribed other than that. And a couple of years ago I decided to go off because I was just fed up with, as you said, eating estrogen. I just didn't want to do it to my body anymore. I was becoming more and more educated about, you know, treating my body well and what was going into it. And I just, I, the risk of getting pregnant no longer was so crazy that it was worth me doing it. And it's, it really took me probably a solid year

before things were sort of like, I was miserable for like three to six months afterwards because my body was figuring out like how it's supposed to feel and how it's supposed to act and operate and what periods are supposed to be like, you know, and it was like a real process. Like I would not want to go through that again.

I think a year is about, that was about what it was for my wife as well. Just strange. Go a couple months with nothing and yeah, it gets weird. I think there are better alternatives. Copper IUD. Wait, what is that? I'm not in the birth control world anymore.

I'm firing kids out like Doug Larson. I was always nervous about the non-hormonal IUD just because I felt like it was almost more like a risk for people. What are you good at? It's possible. It's totally possible. But if someone is really, again, the risks have to outweigh the benefits.

I mean, there is risk of perforation with the copper IUD. And what about like the scar tissue issues? Yeah. I mean, those are all risks. Yeah. So I think men just have to wear condoms or something like that. Pull a prey. Pull a prey. Pull a prey.

And spray. Pull a prey and spray. We're expanding it. Anything else? Should we wrap it up on that one? Yeah, yeah. Where do we go after that? I don't know.

I feel like there's a part of your life that we still haven't figured out. But we can finish this thing up. No, we don't have to. What have we not talked about that you would love to talk about? Any areas that you're hiding? What are you doing for your training right now? You're super yoked. I am not super yoked.

You've got this gangster-ass tattoo on your arm. You look like you're stronger than me. She's definitely stronger than you. What does your training look like these days? So I'm doing a lot of kettlebells. This is just a comeback city for me now. It's been two and a half years. Yeah.

Do you go to a kettlebell gym? Strong fit? Just a person? Melissa Parrish. Strong first? Strong first, yeah. So she does that. Cool.

Just really doing rehab and being smart. The hardest thing for me right now is to not. Did you have surgery to fix? I had five PRPs and six stem cells. Oh, yeah. I'm sorry. We went back to that. Six. Two hours ago. Yeah. A long time ago. Yeah, you're good. I had five PRPs and six stem cells. Oh, yeah. I'm sorry. We went back to that. Six.

That was two hours ago. Yeah. A long time ago. Yeah, you're good. I'm going to do my shoulder on Monday. Four stem cells? Yeah. Have you done the stem cells?

You just said. Yeah, I'm sorry. And I broke this left one. What kind of progress did you feel after the stem cells? And how long ago was that? Every eight weeks for the last two and a half years. Oh, okay. You really jacked yourself up. I was thinking you just got like a one-time deal so how did that work 100 recovery the right with 80 percent avulsion for your right labrum

and your right hamstring i tore the hamstring 80 off the bone all right you mentioned that okay and so i also tore the right and left uh labrum and left piriformis, obturator, right shoulder. Couldn't leave that out. So it's a slow, it's frustrating. The kettlebell things are really interesting. How long have you been doing just kettlebell training? I've just been cleared in the last, in fact, I started a week early.

It's really hard for me not. I mean, I'm probably not supposed to be training yet. So if you're listening, Dr. Scheipel, I'm just kidding. This has been the second week. Oh, wow. I just started back the second week. Did you do any of the kettlebell stuff before? No.

It's an interesting world. It's pretty cool. I did it for about six months. Just straight specific kettlebell work. And fixing my mechanics. Yeah, you did a bunch of barbell work, clearly, in your life. The cool thing about the kettlebell thing, it's all really hard. Yeah.

I think the barbell thing is much easier than the kettlebell thing because it's so well-balanced. There's no unilateral pieces. The breathing stuff, if you have two kettlebells in the front rack, shit's hard. And you think like, oh, if I have two 70s in my hands, it's only 140 pounds. I can squat four or five. It should be light. Shit sucks. Do a set of eight.

You're going to be fucking beat up. It's going to be brutal. But you don't think about it because it seems so light until you mechanically change things up, and it gets weird. I mean, they told me that I should be swimming, but it's no fun when you're a significant other. I did beat him once. Hold on. You've got to do the swimming thing. Swimming thing's cool. I started doing it. Have you done

any of the cold bath? Yeah, for fun. My significant other is a seal. That's our date night. Ice baths on a Saturday? What do you do for fun? That's what we do. I did a bunch of the XPT stuff lately. Ice bath training on a Saturday? What do you do for fun? That's what we do. Every Saturday? Well, I did a bunch of the XPT stuff lately.

And ice bath training, clearly. I've been friends with Galpin, and his backyard's got a sweet freezer in the back of it. Are you guys really doing a bunch of that? Yeah, we do ice baths. It's literally, like, in your house, in your apartment? Have you ever gone to do cryo with a seal? Cryo? No.

It's not fun. I've never been cryoing. Are you three minutes? You guys do, like, 15 minutes and try and freeze your skin seal? Cryo? No. It's not fun. I've never been cryo. Three minutes, you guys do like 15 minutes and try and freeze your skin off. So he goes in. There's different levels. So he goes in. I'm sure he picked the low level because he's a seal. No.

And he says. I don't need the intense one. Don't worry. He looks at the girl and he said. Turn it up. Is this thing getting colder? Is this on? Is this on?

I'm like, this is not fun. But okay. Is cryo in the ice bath? No, it's totally different. Ice bath is ten times worse than cryo. I don't understand. Like, I see these, like, UFC fighters and MMA guys doing cryo for recovery, and they're, like, whining like babies.

And I'm like, this is not that bad. Like, an ice bath is – that takes some cojones. Yeah, that's so easy on a Friday night date. Yeah. Cryo feels nice. You feel like a million bucks when you get out of there. If it wasn't marketed as negative 150 degrees or whatever hell they put on the label, then nobody would do it. But it sounds really cool by having that.

If the steam didn't come up through the top. It does look cool. So you get a cool Instagram photo. What's that? What do you do? Do you guys go on vacation? What do you do to relax? Do you guys do anything? Ever do you do? Do you guys go on vacation? What do you do to relax? Do you guys do anything?

If ice baths are Friday nights, we rock to relax. We rock. Yeah, see, that's what I was going to say. How long has this relationship been going on here? The way you guys touch each other, it feels like it's been going on for about an afternoon and a half. It's about that long. Yeah, beautiful.

So, yes, our afternoon date nights are rocking.'s about that long. Yeah. Beautiful. So, yes. Our afternoon date nights are rucking. Got it. He does 80. I do 45. You guys need to come back to Ottawa. We'll go over to Gatineau and hike in the hills in Quebec. It's beautiful.

Amazing. And it'll be just hard enough if you put on a heavy backpack. Well, that makes it more challenging, right? Do it in the freezing cold. Makes it more fun. Before we wrap up, I want to dig into joint health real quick. So all of us standing in this circle have just a pile of injuries. I have more fucking joint pain than I know what to do with,

and I'm pretty damn conservative everywhere. Just kidding, though. See, if Ashley wasn't listening, she would have laughed. I'm over here thinking about what's injured on me. I'm actually doing okay, knock on wood. Well, right now. Have you gone through it? I did tear my labrum what's injured on me. I'm actually doing okay. Knock on wood. Well, right now. Have you gone through it? I did tear my labrum.

I've never actually done the tearing thing. Yeah. I kind of broke a little piece of bone off in the socket. I didn't need surgery. I did the thing where every joint just hurt. It's called being old. Yeah. And then it was like, I just have to stop.

Yeah. Well, regarding joint pain like as important as you were you're mentioning muscle mass is long term for longevity and all these things uh how in your opinion should someone be training to maintain as much muscle mass as possible but keep joint pain to a minimum so you can be a hundred year old person and still be relatively functional i think that's what uh you know you You look at Ronnie Coleman as like the post-child example. He's so messed up.

Yes, it was so sad. Are you kidding? I mean, it was sad that what he's doing, but that guy is fucking happy as shit and he's broken. That is a real

rife thing. He doesn't feel bad for himself, which is incredible. Everyone's like, oh man, Ronnie, that guy is happy as shit. You need to watch it.

It's on Netflix. He's fucking rolling around stoned out of his mind on Oxycontin all day, being, yeah, baby, lightweight, lightweight, baby. And then you see all of his contemporaries, all of his competitors that are kind of still pretty sorted out. Yeah, you know what else?

They don't have eight freaking sandals. That's what I was going to say. It's the same as that one. Who? Yeah, award. Mr. Olympia. It's the same as that Olympic. Jordan was saying the other day like if someone said like you could

get a gold medal but you'll be dead in five years like 98 of people would say i'm taking the gold it's the same with ronnie he's like yeah i am ruined but i would not take it back because of you know what i did to get what i got and it was worth it i think we have i think it's about being smart again i wasn't uh and you weren't, maybe. Not really. I thought I was, but it turned out I wasn't. I think that there is something to be said for maintaining mobility in all planes of motion and also joint health. I don't think that we know exactly the supplementation that works well for everybody because people seem to be different, whether it's curcumin or keeping inflammatory loads low. I do think that there's some really exciting things coming in regenerative medicine. Like I talked about those peptides, there's BPC-157, these injectable or oral peptides to

help with joint and tissue regeneration. Do you have interest in getting back into competitive lifting? Yes. I can't. What are you going to do? What are you going to do? I don't know. I was thinking about it. Power lifting? I don't know. You've been hanging out with Mark Bell lately. He's the best. Right? I would love to do that.

Tell me about that guy because he is like super. Yo, you know what's really funny about those guys is my whole life I've been following them and they've been like these like gigantic power lifting, like tons of muscle and tons of fat all at the same time and then they went like this straight up keto thing and now they're like skinny and i'm like who the fuck are you guys like what i what happened to my like large mark bell yeah i don't know about skinny but but certainly leaner well they're shredded yeah totally yeah i'm not sure what it's actually that's on my my list within the next two weeks i really want to pick

something and see you're like i just started working out again so in two weeks i'm gonna have my competitive goal sorted out sorry i like it i like it you know i try not to really hurt myself i mean i'm gonna have a shoulder done on but type a people bottom line you need you need goals you need to be working on things or you go crazy it's true yeah and there has to be a component of physical it's really interesting the last two and a half years have probably been the hardest i still found ways to train but it's never the same yeah yeah yeah right on let's wrap this thing up dr gabrielle line where can people find you they can find me on instagram do you have anything cool to promote i'm coming out with a nutrition masterclass.

Tell us about it. It should be launching within the next two months. I'm doing it with a girl named Teresa DiPasquale, and we'll be doing a nutrition. Who is she? I feel like I've heard that name. She's amazing. She's a bikini fitness person. Maybe that's why I know her name.

Yeah, you definitely know everybody in bikini, don't you? We know your story. We know your interests. I should put this out there. She's good at what she does. I should put this out there so I can get it done. I need to get my book done. What's the book about?

Well, it's going to be about the organ of longevity. The organ of longevity. Which is muscle. And I think it will have 50% science and 50% mindset. And I think it will be lessons learned. Wait, what was the 50% mindset? It'll likely be 50% medicine and science. And then 50% what I've learned, I have the most amazing patients,

the most amazing human beings. And while they feel that they're getting treatment from me, I learn so much. And I would love to share what I have learned from seeing all walks of life, all kinds of people from elite military operators to athletes to moms and watching their transformation. I think that I can provide a really interesting perspective that will help people drop their stories and just go for it. When's this coming out? Because I really, really want all of this. How fast can I get it done? Two weeks. Put her into the Google Doc. Amazing. I need help getting it done.

Awesome. Ashley, Muscle Maven. Yeah, at the Muscle Maven. Instagram, holla. Douglas E. Larson. Killed it. At Douglas E. Larson on Instagram. Holla.

There you go. Doug Larson Fitness. And DougLarsonFitness.com. You bet. Get into the show collective. At show collective. I'm Anders Varner. At Anders Varner.

Six shows a week. Just tired. Crushing it these days. The strong coach is coming back in January. Ashley Van Houten. She's going to be joining us in the new year, 2019. Thank you so much. One of the coolest parts about doing this job is I only talk to people that are doing exactly what they want to do.

And they're very, very good at it. And thank you for being here. You heard it. Doug Larson said it. The most profound thing he's ever heard on Barbell Shrug. Not paying attention to body fat percentage, but learning how to test for muscle mass percentage. The guy loves talking about muscles. The guy loves talking about muscles.

It's a fact. Thank you for tuning in. Make sure you tag me, at Anders Varner. Take a screenshot of the show. Hit me with the hashtag, go long. I'm sharing shows all day long on Instagram stories. I love it when you people reach out to me. I never really get to meet all the people that love the show and listen to it,

so Instagram's as close as I can get. Shoot me a DM if you have any questions, comments about the show. I love hearing about them. Make sure you get over to DougLarsonFitness.com, all things fitness and business, as well as our sponsors, CateredFit.com. Fresh meals delivered daily. $25 off using the coupon code SHRUGGED25. Organifi.com forward slash SHRUGGED

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